1,001 Novels A Library of America: Southern New England Collected

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Southern New England, Collected

   I already published my full set of rankings for all 91 books from the New England chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.   I did not consolidate all the posts from Southern New England which is basically Massachusetts- neither Rhode Island nor Connecticut are particularly well developed in the sense that the literature either resembles that of Massachusetts (Rhode Island) or New York (Connecticut).  In fact, many of the books from Connecticut could have easily subbed in for books in the New York chapter.   Reviewing the books from Boston is a reminder that this project seems to bog down when it gets stuck too long in a single city, if you are going to use so many detective novels, YA fiction and ethnic bildungsroman's the locales need to shift in the background or the books get repetitive. 

  First- here are the combined rankings:

Published 12/11/23

1001 Novels: Southern New England:

 Rhode Island, Connecticut

   I just remembered that I didn't do a summary for Rhode Island for the 1001 Novels selections because I figured Id just do one for both Rhode Island and Connecticut. 

Rhode Island

1. Agatha of Little Neon (2021) by Claire Luchette

2. Winner of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor and Really Bad Weather (2003) 

by Jincy Willett 

3. Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn (1989)  by Paul Watkins 

4. How Are You Going to Save Yourself? (2018) by JM Holmes

5. She's Come Undone (1992) by Wally Lamb

6.  Outside Providence (1988) by Peter Farrelly

7.  The Memory of Running (1999) by Ron McClarty

8.  Murder at Crossways (2019) by Alyssa Maxwell

9.  The Edge of Winter (2007) by Luanne Rice

Connecticut

1.  The Ice Storm (1994) by Rick Moody

2.  On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous (2019)by Ocean Vuong

3. Revolutionary Road (1961) by Richard Yates

4. The Stepford Wives (1972) by Ira Levin

5.  Reservation Road (1998)by John Burnham Schwartz

6.  Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan (2007)

7. Masters of Illusion: A Novel of the Connecticut Circus Fire (1994)

by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith. 

8. The Invaders (2015) by Karolina Waclawiak

9.   Talent (2019) by Juliet Lapidos

  Of the two states, Connecticut was much better/more significant/etc than Rhode Island, which has to be the least impressive of the New England states by far.  My first six books on the consolidated list come straight from the Connecticut list- and editor Susan Straight didn't even include anything by Hartford's native son, Mark Twain (not sure if that is literally true but his home/museum is in Hartford.  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court?  I guess that doesn't count because it's not actually set in Hartford but still.

   Rhode Island was pretty much torture start to finish.  The first three books from Rhode Island were ok, but the last six were six different types of literary torture.  So many sad-sacks in the books from Rhode Island! Doesn't anybody have any pride in that state? 

   I have The Ice Storm, On Earth and Revolutionary Road as a strong top 3- all three books have some claim to canon level status in 20th/21st century American literature.  I think Connecticut has a strong claim to being the "first suburb" of American letters and that is reflected by 1001 Novel's selections for that state. 

Combined Rhode Island/Connecticut List

1.  The Ice Storm (1994) by Rick Moody

2.  On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous (2019)by Ocean Vuong

3. Revolutionary Road (1961) by Richard Yates

4. The Stepford Wives (1972) by Ira Levin

5.  Reservation Road (1998)by John Burnham Schwartz

6.  Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan (2007)

7. Agatha of Little Neon (2021) by Claire Luchette

8. Winner of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor and Really Bad Weather (2003) 

by Jincy Willett 

9. Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn (1989)  by Paul Watkins 

10. Masters of Illusion: A Novel of the Connecticut Circus Fire (1994)

by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith. 

11. How Are You Going to Save Yourself? (2018) by JM Holmes

12. She's Come Undone (1992) by Wally Lamb

13..  Outside Providence (1988) by Peter Farrelly

14.  The Memory of Running (1999) by Ron McClarty

15. The Invaders (2015) by Karolina Waclawiak

16.   Talent (2019) by Juliet Lapidos

17.  Murder at Crossways (2019) by Alyssa Maxwell

18.  The Edge of Winter (2007) by Luanne Rice

Published 12/21/23

1001 Novels: A Library of America- Massachusetts

  Strongest literary state of the six New England locations, by far.  I feel pretty strongly about the top 4 in that order and the entirety of the top 10.  The last twenty books on that list were pretty wretched.  Every title between 20 and 30 was borderline excruciating.  It's clear that Susan Straight's editorial vision encompasses popular fiction as well as literature. 

1)Moby Dick by Herman Melville

2)The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

3)The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn

4)The Wedding by Dorothy West

5)The Parking Lot Attendant by Nafkote Tamirat

6)Mystic River by Dennis Lehane

7)Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

8)Promised Land by Robert Parker

9)The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

10)We Love You Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge

11)White Ivy by Susie Yang

12)Unraveling by Elizabeth Graver

13)Leaving Pico by Frank X. Gaspar

14)Born Slippy  by Tom Lutz 

15) Beyond That the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

16)Union Dues by John Sayles

17) Faith by Jennifer Haigh

18)April Morning by Howard Fast

19)An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England(2007) by Brock Clarke

20)Caucasia by Danny Senza

21)Vida by Marge Piercy

22)Mermaid in Chelsea Creek by Michelle Tea

23)The Wishing Hill by Holly Robinson

24)Father of the Rain by Lily King

25)The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin

26)The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

27)Dont' Ask me Where I'm From by Jennifer de Leon

28)Meeting Rozzy Halfway by Caroline Leavitt

29)The Giant's House by Elizabeth McKracken

30) Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman

Map showing locations of North American Red Lobster's. 

Published 7/11/23

 Last Night at the Lobster

by Stewart O’Nan (2007)

New Britain, Connecticut

Connecticut: 1/9

    Connecticut and Rhode Island close out the New England chapter of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America with nine title each.  I'm going to finish off  New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, do the non-Boston metro books of Massachusetts's(all of nine of them) then close out New England with the Boston area titles (21 books).   Then I'll cut it all down to two posts and pick my top ten New England books from this list. 

  Last Night at the Lobster is just what it says it is, a novella almost about the last shift at a New Britain, Connecticut area Red Lobster.  The narrator is Manny, the restaurant manager, who has ample cause to reflect on an evening where severe weather limits the number of diners.  O'Nan is exceptionally sympathetic to his subjects and to the Red Lobster itself, which comes across as humbly dignified community meeting spot.  As for Connecticut, there isn't much to say- I looked up a map of all the Red Lobsters in North America and there is nothing New England/Connecticut specific about the chain.  Other than the snow, the only local flavor is the backstory of a waitress whose partner is an undocumented West Indian immigrant who is well know for his cricket prowess in the area. 

  At least Last Night at the Lobster escapes the bedroom suburb milieu of most of the other Connecticut titles on the list.   Those books promise to try my patience.

Published 7/19/23

 Talent (2019)

 by Juliet Lapidos

New Haven, Connecticut

Connecticut 2/9

  My high school girlfriend went to Yale- Talent- the sole novel by American journalist Juliet Lapidos- is set at Collegiate University in New Harbor Connecticut- it's obviously supposed to be Yale. Lapidos did her undergraduate degree at Yale.  Anyway- I visited New Haven on a cool fall morning on my way to visit my other high school friends who were attending Wesleyan.  I have a distinct memory of sitting in the cafeteria with my ex while she smoked cigarettes and ate breakfast at the very same time.  It made quite an impression, as did the gothic architecture.  I walked around the surrounding neighborhood and got a brief taste for it before I caught the next train- or bus- or whatever. 

   Talent was one of my least favorite books in the 1001 Novels project thus far.  Anna, Lapidos' well-off, procrastinating literature graduate student, who is in her seventh year of trying to get her PHD (stuck on her thesis) sounds like someone I grew up with- not a specific person- just like someone I would have known growing up, in high school perhaps.   The story involves the notebooks of a Vonnegut type of popular/semi-serious author who becomes a focus of Anna's thesis when she becomes entangled with the dead author's disgraced niece, a sketchy antiquarian who dabbles in replicating rare books and selling them online.  Only in literary fiction!

  Published in 2019, Talent came a few years too early to catch any neurodiversity vibes, but it's clear that Anna is a little different, a little neuro-diverse.  The whole effort fell flat for me.

Published 7/26/23

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England(2007)

 by Brock Clarke

Amherst, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 1/30

    30 novels to represent Massachusetts's seems low, but I've already noticed a distinct preference for editor Susan Straight to pick more recent books, first novels in particular, so from that perspective you would expect Massachusetts's to be under-represented since it dominates the 19th century and then drops off in significance from there.  Today I associate Massachusetts lit with working-class white guys, the idea of a Brahmin literary elite is risible in 2023.

   Out of the 31 books picked to represent Massachusetts, only two of them are in the western half of the state.  To cut Massachusetts in half you simply follow the course of the Connecticut river, which is familiar to most Americans as the border between New Hampshire and Vermont, that line runs right down the middle of Massachusetts.  This book is one of them and the other is Born Slippy by Tom Lutz, which is placed just south of the Vermont border in Leyden.

   My experience with An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Home in New England was compromised by two facts, first my background as a criminal defense attorney and second, my decision to listen to the Audiobook edition.  I can't remember a time when I was so bothered by the voice of the person reading an Audiobook- dating back to when I pulled down public domain Audiobooks read by amateurs.  Daniel Passer- if you are subscribed to Google alert's for mentions of your name and this pops up- I'm sorry.  I see that you are a theater actor and some kind of "professional clown," and I saw that you read the Audiobook edition of Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney, so obviously you are well respected in the field etc,  but personally I just couldn't stand it.

  As to my background in criminal defense- I very much try to avoid to be one of those people who lets their profession dominate their perceptions about culture but the background here was just too much suspension of disbelief, based on what I know.  Specifically, the idea is that the narrator (unreliable at best) is released from prison after serving a 10 year sentence for "accidentally" burning down the Emily Dickinson house and killing two people.

    All the facts within the book that flow from this incident are ridiculous.  To name a few:

1.  Everyone constantly calls the narrator a murderer but it's clear from the way he was treated (10 year sentence instead of life in prison) that everyone accepted that the deaths were accidental.

2.  After he is released from serving his ten year prison sentence, he spends the rest of the book gallivanting around New England without any sort of probation or parole agent keeping track of him.  The fact that he is obviously on parole, and would be for a long, long time given his conviction for arson resulting in death, would be a huge factor in the story this author is seeking to tell about this narrator.

3. The quasi breezy tone of the novel built around arson was off-putting.  Arsonists are placed on a level with serial killers and torturers in the criminal justice system, it's one of the most dangerous crimes that exist.  

   In writing this review I am aware that Clarke has a reputation as a surrealist with a dark sense of humor, and that he is a tenured Professor of English at Bowdoin.  I'm also aware that he has published five novels and there isn't a hit or award winner among them.  There are plenty of writers with this profile in the 1001 Novels: An American Library and while I'm resigned to my fate, in the same way I resigned myself to reading 150 European philosophical novels during the 1001 Novels to Read Before You Die project, I'm not happy about it.

Nicole Kidman in the 2004 movie version of The Stepford Wives

Published 7/29/23

 The Stepford Wives (1972) 

by Ira Levin

Stepford, Connecticut (Wilton, Connecticut)

Connecticut: 3/9

   The edition that I read was published by English film magazine Sight & Sound and it featured a foreword by the DIRECTOR of the film version Bryan Forbes which mostly him complaining about casting issues.   Very unusual.  The Stepford Wives is one of those books that was integrated in wider popular culture- I remember my mother complaining about other women in my well-off Bay Area suburb in the 80's and 90's as "Stepford Wives".  The book was a hit- of course- author Ira Levin managed to land one of the seminal novels of the 60's: Rosemary's Baby and then this book in the 70's, both books aided by popular movie versions.

  Levin doesn't quite make it into the international canon of literature- like Stephen King there is an argument about whether his books qualify as literature or are mere popular fiction.  BUT whatever your feeling about underlying merit there can be no doubt that The Stepford Wives is a very Connecticut book, that it takes place there and that people continue to associate the bedroom suburbs of Connecticut with the locations in this big.

  The Stepford Wives is not long- barely one hundred pages.  The writing is workmanlike at best, but the idea of men replacing their wives with (spoiler alert) animatronic robots has proved to be evergreen- I'm pretty sure Dont' Worry Baby, a movie that came out last year, was a reworking of that theme. 

Published 7/29/23 

Born Slippy (2019)

 by Tom Lutz 

Frizzell Hill Road, Leyden, Massachusetts

Massachusetts:  2/30

    Nice to read a book on the 1001 Novels list that isn't about a depressed teenage girl living in semi-rural New England.  Instead Born Slippy is about Frank (Everyone calls him Franky), a young contractor from Connecticut working on a spec house in the Berkshires.  He is convinced to hire Dmitry Heald, a young man from Liverpool looking for casual work in America in the summer before uni.   Although Frank is the narrator, Dmitry is the star of Born Slippy, which is titled after Dmitry's favorite song.   Since I'm a fan of the show Barry, it was almost impossible to imagine Dmitry as anyone other than Anthony "Noho Hank" Carrigan- who is actually from Massachusetts.   If you've seen the show and read the book I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.  In fact if Anthony Carrigan or one of his people is reading this they should go and option the book for a movie version starring Carrigan as Dmitry.

   Fan though I am of gender equity in my reading it was also nice to read such an aggressively masculine book- just as a change for all the depressed ladies that seem to swamp New England area lit.    Frank tracks backwards and forward in time till we get to the present of the last act: Frank, a succesful Los Angeles area builder of sound proof studios for the Hollywood elite, and Dmitry, a shadowy money launderer married to an Indonesian beauty.  At some point, Dmitry uses Frank's identification to open up a couple of bank accounts which sets up the action of the final act.

Author Lutz is also the founder of the Los Angeles Review of Books and the large portions of the story set in Los Angeles rang obviously true, down to his description of a relationship between a forty something contractor and a twenty something Angeleno.   Lutz also does not stint on the sexual pathology of Dmitry, which is described in sometimes exhaustive detail (to his credit, every female character in the book admits that Dmitry is a handful).  I'd expect to find him on the 1001 Novels list because editor Susan Straight is also an English Professor at UC Riverside, where Lutz is a tenured English Professor, so they must know one another.

  I thought Lutz didn't quite nail the psychology of Dmitry, since he turns into one of those "getting out before I'm 35" type of rich guys that don't comport with my personal experience with highly driven, succesful individuals.  They do not want to "get out" after "one last score," that is the attitude of losers and failures.  But the plot wouldn't work without his specific motivation, so all and all Lutz makes Born Slippy an enjoyable lark.

American author Kaitlyn Greenidge

Published 7/29/23

We Love You Charlie Freeman (2016) 

by Kaitlyn Greenidge

Wellesley, Massachusetts 

Massachusetts:  3/30

   I think this is the first book by an African American author on the 1001 Books list- which isn't entirely surprising considering that the African American population in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire is small.  Which is not to say that there are NO black people in those states.  I've been to Portsmouth and seen the civic memorial to the African American graveyard and other African-American Portsmouth sights.  Massachusetts, on the other hand, is 10% black and within Boston the figure is close to 25%, so you'd expect some representation in Massachusetts.  And sure enough, here we are, with this interesting book by Wesleyan Professor/author Kaitlyn Greenidge.  

   Greenidge spins an engaging tale about an unusual family from Dorchester, with two hearing daughters who can speak sign language- as taught by their mother.  They are recruited by a Wellesley area institute dedicated to primate research. Greenidge traces the story backwards and forwards through time using multiple narrators.  Through these various voices (mostly African American) the reader learns about the troubled history of the institute and its ties to the Eugenics movement of the early 20th century.  The dominant voice is that of the oldest of the two daughters who is troubled by the experiment, which involves raising a chimpanzee with a human family,  and her families participation in it even before she learns the dark history behind the institute. 

    I listened to the Audiobook, which was mistake.  I'm not a fan of adult literature where the characters are teens or young children.  I'd rather just read those voices than listen to them for 10 to 15 hours.  By the end I had a real appreciation for the book and for author Greenidge.  By the end of the book she has conjured a truly disturbing set of circumstances. 

Published 8/3/23

Agatha of Little Neon (2021)

by Claire Luchette

Woonsocket, Rhode Island

Rhode Island: 1/9

   Welcome to the party Rhode Island! This is the last state in New England that I haven't actually visited. Lord knows I've tried to convince Amy at least to drive over the border once but I've been so far unsuccessful.  Meanwhile she goes there every other year to "work" at the Newport Folk Festival.  Newport looks nice, the rest of Rhode Island... it's basically the southern equivalent of the New Hampshire seacoast region- they even have their own Portsmouth in a similar location.  Unlike New Hampshire there is no "rest" of Rhode Island.  

   Nine books is in line with the rest of the smaller states of New England- looking ahead there is at least one book I'm unlikely to actually read in full (She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb), one s****** genre mystery (Murder at Crossways by Alyssa Maxwell), a coming-of-age novel by a Hollywood a-hole (Outside Providence by Peter Farrelly) and also this book, Agatha of Little Neon, a debut novel by Claire Luchette (whose pronouns are they/them- or she/them).  

   Like other readers, I found Agatha of Little Neon very enjoyable- I should say here I listened to the Audiobook version because it was available on the Libby Library app- most of the book takes place in Woonsocket, a small town in Northern Rhode Island.  Agatha is a Religious Sister- if you don't know the difference between Nuns and Religious Sisters, Nuns are cloistered- removed from the world- whereas Religious Sisters can do stuff- work- even though they both dress alike.   

  At the beginning of the book Agatha and her three co-horts are being relocated from their parish outside Buffalo New York to Little Neon- a recovery facility located in Rhode Island.   Once they get there they engage with the lives of the half-way house residents and Agatha gets a gig teaching geometry at the local Catholic high school.  If it sounds low stakes, it is, but it's also a compelling opportunity to read fiction about two groups: Religious Sisters and half-way house residents, who you don't often hear about in literary fiction.

  I've lived and worked for years in Golden Hill in San Diego and there are several halfway houses in the area- they've been there for decades at this point- and I often see the residents going about their business and thought that each of them has a story to tell, also that telling their story might help them gain insight. 

Published 8/7/23

Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn (1989) 

by Paul Watkins 

Newport, Rhode Island

Rhode Island: 2/9

     One of the interesting aspects of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America is looking at the careers of the authors on the list.  A major difference between 1001 Novels vs. 1001 Books is the depth and scope of both projects.  1001 Books is world wide from the beginning of literature to the end, 1001 Novels is the United States and almost entirely 21st/20th century.    All the authors on the 1001 Books list are canon somewhere, even if that somewhere isn't the 21st century United States.  On the other hand, many of the authors on the 1001 Novels list are barely even read.  Looking at each new author and their career trajectory has proved almost as interesting as the books themselves.

   Paul Watkins in particular is interesting.  He is from the United States but was educated in the UK (at Eton, the fanciest of the "public schools").  His debut novel Night Over Day Over Night (1988) was nominated for the Booker Prize, longlist presumably- or maybe they didn't have the longlist back in 1988.   he published nine novels between 1988 and 2005, all of them with respectable publishers.  None of them were a hit, and several didn't even merit a review from the New York Times Book Review.  

  In 2005 he gave up on literary fiction and started publishing historical detective fiction under a pseudonym, Sam Eastland.   Which is all to say that it looks like Watkins gave it a good try- didn't make it as a writer of literary fiction and then moved one to genre work, which appears to have been marginally succesful (over a thousand Amazon reviews for his biggest books of detective fiction, no more than a hundred or so reviews for this biggest work of literary fiction).

   Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn is a relatively straight forward coming-of-age novel about James Pfeiffer, the younger son of a owner-operator of a fishing trawler in Newport, Rhode Island.  James' dad and mom are obsessed with providing a non-fishing life for their boys.  The reason given is a traumatizing experience for the family when the father was left adrift in the Atlantic Ocean for several days as a younger fisherman.   Dad still wakes up screaming at night, years later.

      None the less, James blows his chance at college when he accuses a classmate of stealing his camera, and is sent back home for the rest of the semester.  There, against his parents wishes, he finds himself beginning his career as a fisherman.   The story of an over-educated scion taking to the sea against his families wishes is at least as old as Two Years Before the Mast (1840), by Richard Henry Dana.   Watkins depiction of life among the fishing reprobates of Newport Rhode Island is interesting, but protagonist James Pfeiffer is less so.  Why would anyone chose the life of a deep sea fisherman? Pfeiffer is clearly motivated by the desire to "own his own boat," but otherwise he just seems like an immature adolescent who doesn't know what he wants. 

Published 8/7/23

How Are You Going to Save Yourself? (2018)

 by JM Holmes

Pawtucket, Rhode Island

Rhode Island: 3/9

   I checked out this book of interlinked short stories of a group of bi-racial and African American men growing up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island as an Audiobook from the library and instantly regretted the choice.   Holmes has an authentic voice, to a fault, almost, and the entire book is written in a locked in first-person narrative that switches in between the members of the friend group (there are four of them) with Gio, a bi-racial Cornell graduate working as a teacher outside Ithaca,  emerging as the central figure.

    I would have much preferred to have read the difficult prose- particularly the sex stuff, of which there is a lot and it is graphic and also there are certainly interactions that could be interpreted as rape.  There's a gangbang of a minor- none of it is horrific but the casualness of the interactions are enough to give even a hardened libertine pause.  Many of the stories crackle with the tension that characterize interactions between young African-American men and authority figures of all sorts.  On that scale, Gio and his buddies hardly rate- there are no arrests, no jail time, no prison sentence.  In fact, the most accurate comparison for Gio and his cohort are other privileged teens from other upper middle class urban areas- regardless of race.

  Anyway- kudos to author JM Holmes for keeping shit so very real.  I did not think that the 1001 Novels project was going to pick a book where a central theme would prove to be the emotions surrounding race-play in interracial relationships (don't google that term without safe search set "on").  I do wish I had read it instead of listened to it.  I think Holmes is the second African-American/bi-racial author in the 1001 Novels list so far.

Published 8/9/23

Murder at Crossways (2019)

by Alyssa Maxwell

Newport, Rhode Island

Rhode Island: 4/9

  This is a straight-forward genre detective novel set among "the 400" in 1898 in Newport, Rhode Island.  The constant use of the phrase "the 400," which was coined to describe the smart set in turn of the 20th century New York City, testifies to the extent to which the Newport described here was an economic colony of New York.  Maxwell's lady detective is Emmaline Cross, a Newport local and member of a cadet branch of the Vanderbilt family.  Cornelius shows up in his dotage, and Murder at Crossways is stuffed with observations that make it clear that Maxwell has read her Edith Wharton.  Incredibly, editor Susan Straight selected this book over a book by Edith Wharton who actually lived in Newport and frequently set parts of her books there. 

    I guess the idea is that everyone has read Edith Wharton in school or what have you.  Although neither the characters or plot is particularly interesting does have some moments, like the part of the plot that revolves around the characters learning about the effects of cocaine (it was still legal back then) and the frenetic description of the various carriages that the characters use to tool around Newport in the pre-automobile era.

  I listened to the Audiobook version which was not great- how much gee-wilikers girl detective voice does a guy have to hear to get the point.

Published 8/9/23

Reservation Road (1998)

by John Burnham Schwartz

Stamford, Connecticut

Connecticut: 4/9

   Not to be confused with Revolutionary Road (1961) by Richard Yates, which is also set in Connecticut and is also on the 1001 Novels list.  This isn't quite a legal procedural- the story is about a hit and run where a young boy dies and the impact of the crime on both families, neighbors in Stamford, Connecticut.  The story is told in rotating chapters told from the POV of the perpetrator, Dwight, a disgraced attorney desperately trying to reconnect with his son after a messy divorce, Ethan, father of the victim, a literature professor at a local liberal arts university, and his wife, who is a basket case for the entire book.

  Reservation Road is another book where my professional experience impeded my enjoyment- like- a major issue in the book is that the police do not make much progress in finding the perpetrator and generally give father Ethan a "what can we do" type of attitude.  Now, I know full well that in communities like Stamford, Connecticut, the local authorities do not just throw up there hands when a child is murdered in a hit and run. 

  The whole story struck me as ridiculous up to and including the death of the child itself which happens because this 10 year old boy walks out into the middle of the street and fails to hear or see the approach of a speeding vehicle that hits him.  Again, I grew up in an area that was in many ways the west coast equivalent of Stamford, Connecticut and I know for a fact that in places like that you can hear a car coming away, literally, for miles, because there is no other noise happening.

   Seriously though keep me away from literature dealing with contemporary crime and punishment- I'm not a good audience for those books.

Published 8/21/23

Outside Providence (1988)

by Peter Farrelly

Providence, Rhode Island

Rhode Island: 5/9

     Fiction about Americans is almost entirely about three different groups:  city people, town people and rural people.  Part of understanding American Literature is understanding the demographic changes where Americans have increasingly become concentrated in urban areas while at the same time resisting identifying themselves as embracing big city/cosmopolitan virtues.  This shift happened in the 20th century. At the beginning of the century the concentration of people in towns and cities was under 30 percent of the total population.  Today it's something like 90 percent of the total population in the United States. 

   Those places that are NOT located in cities, towns and built up areas are increasingly defined by their proximity to those places and intrusions from those places.  In the states of New England, you can see that clearly in the fiction of Maine and Vermont which fairly crackles with the tension between locals and those from away.   I mention this because Rhode Island is the first truly urban setting encountered in the 1001 Novels sequence.  Obviously, Boston is THE city for New England, but Providence Rhode Island would be the second place finisher.  Thus, it's not surprising to read a book by Hollywood filmmaker Peter Farrelly- presumably a fictionalized version of his own upbringing Outside Providence, coming out of Rhode Island.

    This book basically seemed like a regional variation on The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll, which was about growing up in New York City between 1963 and 1966.   Outside Providence is set in a different state and decade, but there is no mistaking the "city kid" coming of age motif that has been current since The Catcher in the Rye was published in the New Yorker.  As far as I can tell, Outside Providence was a flop when it came out, then got made into a movie after the Farrelly Brothers broke out in Hollywood.  To Farrelly's credit, Outside Providence does feel like a book set in a specific place- plenty of scenery described and outdoor escapades.  

Published 8/21/23

The Edge of Winter (2007)

by Luanne Rice

South County, Rhode Island

Rhode Island:  6/9

 

  I checked out the Audiobook of The Edge of Winter by Luanne Rice.  Huge mistake.  It made this intolerable tale even longer and more boring than it had to be.  I want to make it clear that I am accepting the gauntlet thrown down by editor/creator of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America to embrace what is disparagingly called "chick lit" - though Straight seems to favor melodrama over the rom-com style plots of "classic" chick lit.  Perhaps it might be better to say that 1001 Novels: A Library of America is filled with Oprah-lit- books that have been selected by Oprah for her books club must have featured a half dozen times already.   Rice churns out titles with depressing regularity of someone who is operating in-genre- but she has some hits- one of her books has 65k Amazon reviews which is an astonishing number for any book anywhere.  Most of her books have between 500 and 1500 reviews, which is good but not great.

   Anyway- this one was straight-up excruciating with all of the tropes of New England lit by way of a Lifetime movie rolled into one Audiobook with an implausibly earnest narrator in light of the subject matter.  I just, couldn't wait to be finished.  Utterly excruciating.  Very Rhode Island though- can't fault The Edge of Winter for being picked for the 1001 Novels list. 

Published 8/23/23

April Morning (1961)

by Howard Fast
Lexington, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 4/30

    At last, a work of historical fiction on the 1001 Novels: A Library of America, list.  Not that I love historical fiction but there have been so many works of contemporary fiction with protagonists that rely heavily on single moms, their sad kids and the alcoholic/absent father- I'm about to tote up all of northern New England: Maine, New Hampshire & Vermont, and I'm guessing the number of titles with sad single moms and their alcoholic/absent husbands is at least 50 percent.

  Why not more historical fiction?  I mean, I know why, because it is very unfashionable and deeply uncool and very little of it has been written in the past couple decades, in terms of the canon.  I found April Morning, a fictionalized account of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April of 1775, very interesting.  The story is told through the eyes of Adam Cooper, a 15 year old boy on the cusp of manhood who finds his life turned upside down in the days surrounding the battle.   April Morning is an interesting example of a book that was intended for adults but found wider acceptance as a "YA title" because of the coming of age elements surrounding his main character. 

Published 8/28/23

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.

Published 8/28/23

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.

Published 8/30/23

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.  

   Published 9/6/23

The Invaders (2015)

by Karolina Waclawiak

Little Neck Cove, Connecticut

Connecticut: 6/9

     Another entrant into the "suburbia and its discontents" file of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America.  Author Karolina Waclawiak is best know as a journalist- she was the editor in chief who turned out the lights when Buzzfeed News shut down.  She's written two books- this one and How to Get Into the Twin Palms.    The Invaders is set in the exclusive suburb of Little Neck Cove- populated by a mixture of rich white people who are either 1) rich old white guys 2) the first wives of those men  3) the second of third wives of those men and 4) their children.

   The main characters are Cheryl, an aging trophy wife and Teddy, her college age step son recently returned after being expelled from college.  Husband Jeffrey is mostly absent- like many of the men in this category of books, his career is opaque- he's in sales, or something.  As the reader expects in a work of literary fiction set in the American suburbs ALL IS NOT WELL.  Cheryl and Teddy are BOTH SEIZED BY BOUTS OF ENNUI.   Characters TAKE DRUGS and HAVE SEX- well not so much sex, this is Connecticut after all.

   Whenever I read a book from this shelf I find myself urging the sad suburban characters to get active mentally and physically- go for a run! Join a gym! Read a book! Volunteer at a homeless shelter!  I'm a firm believer that 99% of contemporary maladies are caused by either a lack of mental or physical exercise and/or a lack of purpose.  Neither Teddy nor Cheryl do anything like that beyond taking long walks in the woods (Cheryl).  The lack of purpose is particularly glaring in almost every book about suburban discontent including this one.  Unless the character is a child under the driving age, there really is no excuse for the lives of these sad suburbanites.  Get out of your house, go do something- anything!  Just stop moping around!

Published 9/6/23

The Memory of Running (1999)

by Ron McClarty

East Providence, Rhode Island

Rhode Island: 8/9

    The Memory of Running  came as a real surprise with a very quirky origin story.  Author Ron McClarty is best known as an actor (he was a main character on the Spencer for Hire tv show.  He wrote this book, a heroes quest story about an obese Vietnam veteran reeling from the deaths of his elderly parents in an auto accident.  Cleaning out their house, he finds a death notice for his estranged, mentally ill sister from Los Angeles which sends him on a journey across America on a bicycle, as he struggles with his memories of growing up with a mentally ill sister.

   When McClarty wrote the book he couldn't find a publisher so he created his own Audiobook version (McClarty is a notable Audiobook narrator- the winner of many "Audies").  Author Stephen King listened to the Audiobook and wrote about it in his Entertainment Weekly column and the rest is publishing history!  From the perspective of the 1001 Novels project, this hardly qualifies as a Rhode Island- the present of the book is a cross-country journey on a bike, and the flashbacks are very focused on the interactions between the narrator and his family.

  The theme of the mentally ill sister ripping the family apart has been a major issue in three of the last five books I've read in the 1001 Novels: A Library of America. It's amazing to me that the characters in these books let their whole entire lives be governed and ruined by a mentally ill sibling or family member. Some of these literary families are working class, others are upper middle class, but they all let their entire lives- personal and professional be ruined by a psychotic child. Well, ok.  Personally, I don't think having a sub-optimal family situation is a reason to be totally enslaved by it. 

  The Memory of Running has some moments, but most of it reads like a book length montage scene of Forrest Gump running across America with dangerous misunderstandings and a host of sad, sad stories. 

Published 9/12/23

Don't Ask Me Where I'm From (2020)

by Jennifer De Leon

Weston, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 7/30

   Don't Ask Me Where I'm From is a 2020 YA title about the experience of the high school aged US citizen daughter of two illegal immigrants from Central America. Early in the book she is selected by her urban high school to attend a ritzy high school in the suburbs. meanwhile dealing with the sudden deportation of her father at home.  I've now read more YA novels via the 1001 Novels: A Library of America project than I had in the proceeding decade plus.  I find them tedious.  Unfortunately, Don't Ask Me Where I'm From is no exception to that trend.  First, I checked out the Audiobook from the library but I literally could not take it.  I found the voice of the narrator/teen to be particularly annoying, like watching a humorless television show about high school students.  

  I don't have anything against Liliana and her background- I deal with the consequences of our broken immigration system in the federal court system on a weekly basis, talking to families EXACTLY like Liliana's, so she isn't saying I haven't heard or felt or argued in Court a million times over the past two decades.  As for her high school experience, I don't have a lot of sympathy.  I'm a full supporter of diversity, affirmative action, being cognizant of valuing different experiences etc. but not so much of high school students.  It's a tough time, I know, but would it be too much for one character in a YA title to not think that they are the center of the universe and that their particular set of problems is unique to themselves- because that it is literally every high school student in a a YA novel EVER. 

   Don't Ask Me Where I've Been is, however, the first book about Central American immigrants, which is a diversity win for the 1001 Novels: A Library of America.

Published 9/13/23

 Winner of the National Book Award: 

A Novel of Fame, Honor and Really Bad Weather (2003) 

by Jincy Willett 

Frome, Rhode Island

Rhode Island: 9/9

   Rhode Island: It's eccentric even by the high standards for eccentricity set by the other states in New England.  That is my assessment after reading the 9 books this smallest state got on the 1001 Novels: A Library of America List.  As you might guess from the title, Winner of the National Book Award is a wry, self-aware book that still manages to be about the troubled relationship between two sisters in the northeast- which feels like the subject of 8/10 of the last 1001 Novels: A Library of America.  This time around, one sister (narrator) is a prim librarian the other is a slatternly tart currently facing murder charges for killing her comically abusive writer husband. 

  Once again I found myself rolling my eyes at the degree to which the mental illness of one family member totally controls the life (and plot of the novel) of another, seemingly not insane family member.  Like other re-occurring situations this one seems to be at the heart of contemporary fiction, particularly as it is represented by editor Susan Straight in the 1001 Novels List.  Winner of the National Book Award, is, at least, intermittently funny and it comes with pull quotes from both Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris, which should give anyone familiar with either writer an idea of the vibe the reader is going to experience.   I'm pleased to see the end of Rhode Island- the fourth state I've finished on the 1001 Novels List.

Published 9/13/23

Beyond That, the Sea (2023)

by Laura Spence-Ash

Chelsea, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 9/30

  I listened to this entire Audiobook- 12-13 hours worth, without guessing that this was a recent release.  It's obviously a recent work of historical fiction but it could have been published anytime in the past fifty years and I wouldn't have questioned it.  But, as it turns out it came out this summer and got a capsule review back in May of this year.  The Times called it, "a timeless exploration of what it means to be a family," but I mostly found the Audiobook bearable because of the accents from upper-crust Boston and working class London in the 1940's to 1960's as articulated by the book readers.   Beyond That, the Sea is a good example of a book I might have been able to complete in hardback, but give me an Audiobook with a female narrator in 1950's London and I am all ears for 10 to 15 hours of drive time.

   The story is about a girl- Beatrix call her "Bea" who is shipped across the ocean during the London Blitz to live with a genteel family in Boston.  For the purposes of the 1001 Novels project, Beyond That, the Sea is assigned to Chelsea, which is a still-grubby western suburb of the center city.  I've never been there beyond stopping to buy a doughnut and coffee off the freeway on the way north, but I gather from the description of the family home of the American host family, it used to have some nice parts. 

   Her host family is part of the genteel protestant world of old Boston- Dad is a three generation legacy at Harvard, Mom comes from a family that is perhaps less cultured but wealthier than that of the Dad.  They live in a house provided by the school where Dad is the headmaster.  They have two sons.   Most of the book is about the relationship with Bea and those two boys (then men) but both sets of parents have their own distinct voices, with both Mothers taking up almost as much space as the central relationship between Beatrix and the two sons of the family.

  Here, for the first time, nine books in, we get some good Boston content- Beatrix loves Fenway park and a couple important scenes take place there.  There  are also decent descriptions of Maine- where the family owns a small island with a house.  There is some tediousness in the fact that most of the book takes place with the three main characters on separate continents for decades- it's just not conducive to compelling fiction- but it's a pleasant enough book.  It is fiction- not literature, with a happy ending fit for a Hallmark movie.

 

Published 9/14/23

Meeting Rozzy Halfway (1980)
by Caroline Leavitt

Boston, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 10/30

    The Map Makers for the 1001 Novels project have Meeting Rozzy Halfway placed in Boston, but it seems like Brookline, a tony suburb that is surrounded by Boston, would be more accurate.  I'm not entirely sure, having never been to Brookline, but I've certainly heard about it, specifically as having a Jewish element within the greater Boston metro area- which is not a Jew intensive area.   I hadn't read or heard of Leavitt before this book- a review of her 2021 novel Cruel Beautiful World identifies her as a writer of "dramatic-absorbing popular fiction", which is not the same as being a writer of serious literature but better than being the type of writer of popular fiction who is ignored by the New York Times Book Review.

  Meeting Rozzy Halfway also got a New York Times book review as part of a two-book review where both books are about family relationships.  The critic in the Times wasn't a huge fan at the time, but I gather from the author's afterword to the Ebook version I read, it was a popular success and sold plenty of copies.  I agree with the criticisms of the New York Times critic back in 1980, Rozzy, the schizophrenic half-sister is not particularly interesting as the literary insane go.  Bess, the sister and narrator, is herself a bit of a bore, and the relationship between siblings seems more of an example of a self-obssessed schizophrenic using everyone around her, with the healthy sister functioning as an enabler. 

  The reader knows that things are not going to end well for anyone in Meeting Rozzy Halfway- like all families that allow themselves to become consumed by the disability of one of them, regret is inevitable and also self-inflicted wounds- in this book the father of the family, a succesful corporate lawyer, eventually becomes a shuffling automaton who stuffs his face with junk food 24/7 and does nothing but watch television in his spare time.  Leavitt is not there to propose any solutions and I sensed that the desired reaction was to stand up and applaud for the sacrifices made by the well-sister/narrator but I found both siblings equally unsympathetic.

   Meeting Rozzy Halfway also scores a zero out of ten for its Boston-ness- they could have been  anywhere and it's quite clear over three hundred page novel that the only thing this family cares about is itself.

Published 9/18/23

The Good Thief (2008)

by Hannah Tinti

Salem, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 11/30

 Finally an enjoyable entry on the 1001 Novels: A Library of America list, after a seemingly endless procession of books about mentally ill siblings and the family members who let them ruin their entire lives.  This, on the other hand, is a dark work of historical fiction set in mid 19th century "factory-land" Massachusetts.  For some reason the 1001 Novels project decided to place The Good Thief in Salem- which- unless that's supposed to be the location of the Dickensian orphanage where Ren is plucked by petty criminal Benjamin Nab- makes no sense at all.   I've spent plenty of time in Salem and it's not clear to me why you wouldn't select Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables- which is literally located in Salem and continues to exist as a museum.  My sense is that editor Susan Straight has stayed away from picking easy books that people already know about (although I see Moby Dick lurking on the 1001 Novels map) in favor of more recent books by a more diverse group of authors.

   Like McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh, another work of dark historical fiction set in19th century Massachusetts, The Good Thief is historical fiction with a modern sensibility.  There is plenty of R-rated content here, even though the story is told from the perspective of a child-orphan.   Of course, whenever a book is about orphans and factories and the 19th century the comparison on hand is Charles Dickens, but it's worth noting that when he wrote, Dickens was a contemporary novelist writing about contemporary issues, not a writer of historical fiction.  

  Basically these phrases should be enough to determine whether The Good Thief is right for you: historical fiction, 19th century, orphans, factories, Massachusetts, dark.

Published 9/23/23

Masters of Illusion: 

A Novel of the Connecticut Circus Fire (1994)

by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

Hartford, Connecticut

Connecticut: 7/9

    My fear before I started the 1001 Novels: A Library of America is that reading 1001 Novels about America would prove tedious.  Simply compare the non-1001 Novels books from the past six months.  1001 Novels books are domestic tragedies about sad working class and middle class families.  Non 1001 Novels books span the globe and take in an incredible range of histories and life experiences.  Masters of Illusion: A Novel of the Connecticut Circus Fire is the first "tough get" on the 1001 Novels list.  The Los Angeles Public Library only has a single copy, which means you can't check it out.  I ended up buying a used copy on Amazon for five bucks.   The book that arrived was both a library discard and a large-print edition- a double loser.  Library discards are the bottom of the barrel of the used book world- their average value is zero cents plus whatever scarcity value the title has- thus me paying five books for my library discard, large print edition.

   In terms of the ability to describe the place- Masters of Illusion is a 10/10 if the place is the Connecticut Circus Fire- which was a real event that took place in Hartford, Connecticut in 1944, the proximate cause being an ill-advised decision to "water proof" the circus tent with a mixture which included paraffin and gasoline.  Over one hundred and fifty people died, over seven hundred were injured.  Since it happened during World War II, most of the victims were women and children. 

  The protagonist is Margie Potter, the youngest survivor of the disaster.  As an 18 year old high school graduate, Potter marries a handsome fireman, Charles O'Neill, who, as luck would have it, absolutely obsessed with solving the mystery of who started the fire.  Margie is swept away by a mixture of passion and a curious lack of ambition- part of her back story is her desire to forego college so she can "get married, have a bunch of babies and stay home and read."  

  I suppose it wasn't an unusual attitude for a working-class woman in Hartford Connecticut to have in the late 1950's early 1960's  Margie and Charlie have a daughter, Martha, and as Martha grows up she begins to question her father's obsession, which forces Martha to re examine her entire life with Charlie.   Masters of Illusion is 100% out of print- the hardcover sells for 80 bucks.  Of course, eBooks have changed the very idea of being "in print," but Masters of Illusion is the first out-of-print title in the 1001 Novels list thus far- over 50 books in!

Published 9/27/23

The Thing About Jellyfish (2015)

by Ali Benjamin 

Stoughton, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 12/30

  Another insufferable YA title from the 1001 Novels: A Library of America list, this one about a 12 year old in suburban Massachusetts who grapples with the loss of her friend, who drowns while on vacation.  Little Suzy has issues besides this one- including recently divorced parents, but it will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has read even a single YA title that she becomes fixated on the cause of her friend's death, which she believes was caused by the sting of a jellyfish.

  Suzy's pre-adolescent angst takes the form of a refusal to speak which is quirky but seems to be pretty common among bookish 12 year old girls the world over.  Everyone is understanding- here parents take her to a therapist who seems content to charge them for weeks of sessions that consist of utter silence.   Here teacher is fine with her not speaking in class, but tells her that she will have to give an oral presentation on a subject of her choosing- required of all students.  Suzy, of course, pick Jellyfish. 

  And that is the book for you. I don't think I missed anything.  There is no doubt that The Thing About Jellyfish was a huge hit and that I have a minority opinion.  It was nominated for a National Book Award (Children's Literature, I'm hoping) and Reese Witherspoon optioned the films rights and inked Millie Bobbie Brown to star back in 2019- I guess the pandemic put a stop to that, and there is no way that MBB could play a 12 year old now.

Author Nafkote Tamirat

Published 9/27/23

The Parking Lot Attendant (2018)

by Nafkote Tamirat

Jamaica Plains, Boston

Massachusetts:  13/30

   I've been pretty harsh to YA fiction and its YA protagonists since I started the 1001 Novels project, which seemingly features a parade of such work. One of my issues is an obvious fact- none of these YA books are written by YA authors.  I'm not sure why that is the case.  After all, if you look at other areas of the culture industry: music, film, there are tons of child participants.   However in the world of fiction, the views of children are almost entirely written by adults. Strange.

   The Parking Lot Attendant is another 1001 Novels book with a YA protagonist, but this is adult fiction with a child narrator, not YA fiction.  The nameless narrator is a high school girl, the child of Ethiopian immigrants. She falls under the sway of Ayale, putatively a parking lot attendant but in reality some kind of guru, criminal mastermind and/or cultural icon of the Ethiopian expatriate community.  Tamirat, to her credit, doesn't provide any backstory to the Ethiopian-ness of her characters, but its worth noting that the highly negative popular view of Ethiopia as a destitute land of famine and poverty disguises the fact that Ethiopia was, until a 1970's Marxist revolution, an ancient Empire that ruled over a variety of lesser developed African tribes.  The ruling class, speakers of an ancient Semitic language called Amharic are lighter and are generally considered to be the descendants of immigrants from the Arabian peninsula after Judaism and Christianity developed but before Islam.

 Which is all to say that the Ethiopians who make it over the USA are not the starving tribesmen that people remember from USA for Africa, but the children of elites from the capital of Addis Abba, many of whom fled the Communists in the 1970's and 1980's, making them closer to immigrants from Cuba and Eastern Europe than the economic immigrants from south of the border.     

     In other words, a book written from the point of view of an Ethiopian adolescent is as sophisticated politically as say, The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, which is a reference point that popped into my head frequently as I read this slim volume.  Ayale and his people are not just a bunch of immigrants trying to hustle in a new world, they have political goals, which are gradually revealed as the narrator recounts her recent past from a present where she is part of some kind of political movement with the goal of creating an independent state in between Ethiopia and Somalia. 

Published 9/29/23

The Woman Upstairs (2013)

by Claire Messud

Manchester-by-the-sea, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 13/30

   Another totally insufferable entry from the 1001 Novels: A Library of America list.  Blame it on the protagonist, 42 year old singleton Nora Eldridge, a woman who turns her back on a prominent NYC career and postcard marriage to teach grade school, work on her shitty dioramas (I believe this is the THIRD novel already where a character makes diorama art as adult "serious" art) and complain about her circumstances to her lesbian-couple best friends. 

  Is she happy about the choices she has made?  She is not.  Is she happy about her present circumstances?  No, she is not.  Into this frothy mix of middle aged female displeasure comes Reza Shahid, the child of a French-Arab-Italian couple, the husband of which is working at Harvard University for a year- he's a scholar, but his actual work is never discussed.  The wife of this couple is Sirena Shahid, and obviously her name foreshadows her activity in the book.   Sirena is a real artist, who does installation art.  After bonding over the bullying Reza faces at the school where Nora is her teacher, the two decide to split the costs on a studio rental.

  Huge mistake to check out the Audiobook here- I've begun abandoning 1001 Novels: A Library of America when the protagonist is a YA teen girl, I just can't stand the hours of listening to YA narrators tell their story.  Going forward I'm going to adopt the same procedure for books focused on unhappy middle-aged women.   So boring- every story, the same batch of complaints.  Either they feel trapped by their children and family OR they are consumed with regret over their failure to be trapped by their children and family.    No character on the 1001 Novels list ever reflects on their situation to the tune of, "Well, lots of people are unhappy in the world, I'd better to focus on the positives, and work to change the negatives."  I mean, there wouldn't be a book if that were the case.

   And just to be clear I'm only talking about AMERICAN authors here- none of this applies to books about women from other places. 

Published 10/6/23

Promised Land (1976)

by Robert Parker

Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 14/30

   This is the fourth book in the series of detective novels that spawned the famous Spenser for Hire television show.  It's amazing how ubiquitous prime-time television was in its heyday.  I never watched an episode but I still remembered that Robert Urich played Spencer.  I had no idea that the show was set in Boston.   I listened to the Audiobook, which was a pretty low rent affair, not that a detective novel from 1975 requires narrative fire-works.  Parker wrote 40 Spenser novels before he died in 2010.  If it is not clear already, a detective novel is a welcome change from the sad families and single women that have absolutely dominated the Massachusetts portion of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America list.  Je-sus.

  Besides never watching the show, I'd never read a Robert Parker book before this Promised Land.  As the fourth book of forty, Spenser and his various attributes have already been set up- the weird relationship with his Jewish girlfriend is in place, and he's working as a private investigator.  It was actually this exact book that served as the pilot episode for the television show, and it also happens to be the first book with Hawk, who I think goes on to become his African-American sidekick- maybe I'm wrong about the relationship.  In Promised Land Hawk is a hired gun working for the bad guys, though with a code of honor that mirrors Spenser's own. 

  The character of Spenser is a private investigator for the 1970's- he cooks, he can talk intelligently about emotions and relationships, and he is actively anti-racist- calling out his employer when he uses the N-word to describe Hawk (who has just beaten him up a little bit).  The gig involves Spenser being hired by a Cape Cod area business man to track down his wayward wife- who has left because he loves her "too much".   She falls in with a nascent group of radical feminists who end up murdering a bank guard during a robbery(!).  Spenser then has to bail out both the wayward wife and his original client, the husband, who is in deep to a loan shark for a real estate deal gone south.

  I didn't love it as a detective novel but as a BOSTON detective novel it was great and like I said, it was a welcome relief from the parade of YA teen girl coming-of-age novels, sad single women and sad family women that have populated this part of the 1001 Novels List.   I'm sitting here looking at a stack of four more- including two that I tried as Audiobooks but couldn't bear in that form. 

Published 10/19/23

Caucasia (1998)

by Danzy Senna

Boston, Massachussets

Massacussets: 15/30

   The 1001 Novels: A Library of America has slowed to a crawl during the big fall release season/awards shortlists on both sides of the Atlantic.   It doesn't help that I'm staring at a literal stack of YA and "domestic" fiction in my study.  I'm really not in a hurry to read any of this books I've got checked out from the library in pursuit of this project.  Caucasia is another volume from the sad families and their children genre that editor Susan Straight seems to prefer in her American fiction.  Senna is a professor of English at USC and she's married to fellow writer Percival Everett.  Senna comes from a mixed-race background- her mother Fanny Howe, is white, and her father, Carl Senna, is black.  They were married in 1968 (mixed race marriage was legalized in 1967) and split up in 1970.  Caucasia, and much of her other work, reflects the life experience of being mixed race, specifically written from the perspective of a child who can pass for white, as, I believe, is the case with Senna based on pictures of her online.

  Caucasia was her debut novel and it's about Birdie Lee, a young girl, like Senna, the child of a white mother and black father who split up.  Her mom, who is, lets face it, a bit of a drama queen, decides that she is being targeted by the FBI for her radical activities (unclear if that is actually the case), so she splits up her family, sending Birdie's black-looking sister off with her Dad to Brazil and decamping with Birdie to northern New England, where they end up spending most of the book in small-town New Hampshire.  I'm assuming this didn't actually happen to Senna since it is both presented as a work of fiction and because she wrote a subsequent memoir of her personal experience as a mixed-race child.

  Caucasia is another example of a book on the 1001 Novels: A Library of America written from the perspective of a teen although it is not YA fiction.   Like many issues related to race, growing up in the Bay Area in an upper-middle class millieu shielded me from many of the harsh realities of race in America.  It wasn't until I got to college in Washington DC that I realized that interracial relationships were in any way controversial.  Certainly, among on elementary through high school classmates there were plenty of interracial relationships- black/white, white/asian, black/asian, etc.  It just wasn't particularly unusual in that place and time.  I know better now, of course, and Caucasia is a good book for those looking for insight on the experience of growing up biracial in America.

Published 10/24/23

The Wedding (1995)

by Dorothy West

Martha's Vineyard, Massachussets 

Massachussets: 16/30

   Dorothy West (1907-1998) was the youngest member of the Harlem Renaissance but many were surprised when The Wedding was published in 1995, over forty years after her last novel was published. The Wedding is set on Martha's Vineyard in the 1950, among the black elite who colonized a neighborhood called The Oval in the town of Oak Bluffs, which had historically been a segregated community for laborers in the area.  The Wedding is the kind of book I thought I'd be seeing much more of in the 1001 Novels project:  It is about a time and place I know very little about, and the book helped me learn more about the location and the people involved.

   West takes a poly-phonic approach, writing in the third person about a variety of characters who have gathered for the marriage of Shelby Coles, the blue eyed, white skinned daughter of the leading family in the oval, to Meade Howell, a white(!) jazz musician from New York City.  The reader learns about Shelby and her family: Corinne and Isaac Coles, her sister, her Grandmother, "Gram."  Corinne, Isaac and Gram each get their own backstories as the reader learns about the experience of being a light-skinned "colored" person (black people who could pass for white) in the United States.   It's a fraught topic, both in literature, where the concept of the "tragic mulatto" usually a colored woman passing for white, was a significant one in 20th century African American fiction.  West is clearly writing to redress that stereotype, but I also feel like The Wedding is also meant to address the wave of African-American activism that proclaimed "black is beautiful" and looked skeptically at the light-skinned African American elite which proceeded it. 

  In short, The Wedding was everything I had hoped the 1001 Novels: A Library of America to be, and I'm hopeful that there will be more books like this one, and fewer about sad adolescent girls and their whimsical fantasies, going forward.

Published 11/20/23

Mermaid in Chelsea Creek (2013)

by Michelle Tea

Massachussets: 17/30

Chelsea, Massachussets

    Despite having spend close to an entire month in Boston over the past decade, I've never got a sniff of Chelsea, which is technically a Boston suburb but functionally part of Boston.  Chelsea is separated from Boston by the Mystic River, a body of water that serves as a divider between cosmopolitan Boston and the working-class, white suburbs north of town.   Mermaid in Chelsea Creek is, you guessed it, another YA title about a sad teen being raised by a single mom.  She amuses herself by going down to a dirty creek and playing the suffocation game, where you hold your breath until you pass out.  During one of these episodes the titular mermaid appears to her and points her to a destiny that includes- can you guess?!?!- great magical powers and a destiny which includes saving the world, or something.  Mermaid is the first of a trilogy so Sophie Swankowski doesn't get very far in this, the first book.

  The reader is introduced to a variety of characters, some magical (talking pigeons!) and others less so.  As far as YA books go, Mermaid is relatively benign and readable for an adult- probably because it was published by McSweeney's and not a mainstream publisher.  Still, it is hard not to be irritated with yet another YA book about a struggling teen girl.   Look, I get it, it is tough to be a teenage girl in a disadvantage neighborhood.  It seems like there is plenty of thematic overlap in these books:  Issues with their parents, issues with their school, a lack of direction to their future.  Sounds like teenagers everywhere, right?

   Mermaid in Chelsea Creek was one of these 1001 Novels books where I checked out the Audiobook and then quickly realized that listening to an Audiobook of this title would be a nightmare- I can't take ten hours of a teenage girl complaining about her life, it's just interminable. All their complaints are exactly the same.  So then I checked out the hardback from the library and it went down easy.

Published 11/20/23

The Giant's House (1996)

by Elizabeth McCracken

Massachussets: 18/30

Brewster, Massachussets

   Ok,  I'm out on Cape Cod right now- more than halfway through the interminable Massachussets chapter of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America.  I think I'm close to 10% through this list and... a lot of teen girls coming of age and sad single moms so far.   Speaking of which, The Giants House is another sad single lady- though the mom bit takes the whole book to arrive.  The Giants House is an example of a book that does not make for a good Audiobook- which- I'm coming to learn, is a book where the narrator is someone I don't sympathize with or empathize with.  The closer the Audiobook narrator is to me, the better- which is an example of how bias works unconsciously.  The "voice" of a book never bothers me when I read it, because the voice I hear is "my" voice.

  All I'm saying is that I would have had fewer issues completing this title if I'd read it vs. listening to the Audiobook.   Now, The Giants House was a National Book Award nominee back before they had a longlist/finalist- so it was like one of five or four books.  I went back and read the New York Times review at the time it was released and it wasn't a "whoa, all hail this masterpiece."  If anything I would call it essentially a negative or at least neutral review- close to what I felt.  The problem is with the narrator- Cape Cod Librarian extraordinaire Peggy Cort.   Peggy... does not have a lot of romantic self confidence, and even allowing for the fact that this book is set in the psycho-sexual dark ages- 1950 small-town Massachussets, but you'd at least think a Boston trained librarian would have access to books about sex and such that would allow her to get beyond her one-note neurosis. 

   Peggy falls in love with James Sweatt, a teenager destined to become the worlds tallest man.   Cort meets Sweatt when he is a very tall teenager, and the book follows the two and their curious relationship over the course of about five years.   To McCracken's credit, shit gets extremely weird and dark before she closes up the story.  

Published 11/27/23

Father of the Rain (2010)

by Lily King

Massachussets: 19/30

Boston, Massachussets

   I was prepared to trash this book, but then I went and read the favorable New York Times review from 2010 and her current review count on Amazon (her top two books have 14k and 12k reviews, which is an order of magnitude bigger than what even succesful literary fiction titles register on that site).   It looks like she traded in an earlier segment of her career, epitomized by this book, which won her some regional literary awards for a later portion of her career where she just spins out bangers.  

   What I'm trying to do here is not be unreasonably mean, even though I found Father of the Rain hard to bear, with its relatively privileged protagonist, an anthropology student who has landed a tenure track professorship at UC Berkeley.   Daley Armory is headed in the right direction when her past, in the form of her alcoholic, waspy, father has a medical emergency and summons her back to the tony Boston suburb where she grew up.  King doesn't actually tell the book in flashback format, rather we get a straight narration, taking you from Daley's mildly difficult childhood through her sub-optimal choice to chuck a potential tenured professor at UC Berkeley to teach high school and raise a couple kids with her husband- which is where she ends up- sorry for the spoiler but is that really a surprise- I felt like the resolution to this book was luminous from the very first page.   Of course she isn't going back to get that job but also of course it works out for her in a different way in the end.

  Like many parents in the pages of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America, Daley has a Mother who thinks she knows what's best for her daughter (leaving a mildly annoying, alcoholic husband who is none the less a good provider) when her daughter almost certainly disagrees with her.  The formative moment in this book comes when Daley's mom announces to Daley that they are leaving the next day, without so much as a conversation with the Dad.  I'm not hugely sympathetic to alcoholic wasps from Massachussets, but simply as a human being it seemed like Daley's mom was making a poorly reasoned choice. 

  

Published 11/30/23

Illumination Night (1987)

by Alice Hoffman

Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Massachusetts:  20/30

    Really in my "tedious slog" era of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America project.  This seemingly never ending Audiobook (only 224 pages in print) took me literally months to get through because I could normally listen only in 15 minute segments.   The most incredible part about Illumination Night vis a vis its place in the 1001 Novels project is that this book also features a giant who lives on the Cape!  The two books are only separated by a few hours drive (well boat ride since this book is on the Vineyard and the McKracken book is on the mainland).  

   Of course, The Giant's House  is ALL about the giant and here the giant is a relatively minor player.  The main character is Vonny, a 20 year mother of one married to Andre- a brooding motorcycle mechanic/restorer and mother of Simon, who is a tiny little boy.  They move to the Vineyard year round at the beginning book and meet their next door neighbor Elizabeth Renny, an elderly widow and her granddaughter Jody, a bored, horny 17 year old who is sent as a seasonal assistant to granny but then connives her way into year round residency.

    I was almost personally offended by the characters in this book and their problems.  Particularly Vonny, who inexplicably becomes agoraphobic half-way through the book after she gets into a fight with her Dad.   I am not exaggerating- she goes into New York, has an argument with her Dad- from whom she is ALREADY estranged, goes back to the Cape and can't leave her house.  Andre nails the jail bait next door but slides off the hook when Jody becomes intimidate with the Giant who lives down the road.

   Basically once Vonny manifests her agoraphobia I couldn't stop thinking about how only the privilege can suffer from a disease where you have to stay inside your nice, safe, bourgeois house.  What happens to agoraphobics who live in a hut in the third world?  In true literary fiction fashion, Vonny does have a livelihood that she can do from her house- she's a potter.   Anyway I found the whole thing ridiculous and stupid.   And I'm so tired of these books about sad housewives and their troubled lives raiding children as privileged white people in America.  Boo hoo.  Susan Straight has picked a lot of those books so far- roughly a hundred books in I think.

Published 11/30/23

Moby Dick (1851)

by Herman Melville

Nantucket, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 21/30

Herman Melville

    Moby Dick is another 1001 Novels/1001 Books cross-over title- I read it for the 1001 Books project back in 2012.   It's  actually a pretty good review- with links to Ngrams I created showing the relative popularity of Melville to Dickens and Jane Austen in the context of literary revivals... but for the purposes of the 1001 Novels Moby Dick is representing Nantucket.  Considering how much of Moby Dick takes place on a whaling vessel it seems like a bit of a stretch, but it's good to see a solid 19th century classic on the list. 

2012 1001 Books Review:

      Herman Melville is the second major Author on the 1001 Books To Read Before You Die list to obtain his canonical status from a Revival.   The first example of the Revival phenomenon is the well-documented revival of Jane Austen in late 19th century.  Although published in 1851, Herman Melville was ignored for decades after his death except by a small circle of writers and critics in New York City who "kept the flame alive."

 The conventional explanation for the revival of Herman Melville is that he was "before his time" in using Modernist literary techniques.   Fair enough.  It is true that successors didn't start truly arguing for the enduring value of Moby Dick until 1917.

Moby Dick the White Whale

  Much of the "blame" for the failure upon initial publications came from the harsh response that London based critics gave to Moby Dick.  The story goes that the less-sophisticated American critics followed their lead.   That is a weak explanation for why Moby Dick failed.

 The best way to illustrate this is by looking at the reception by American critics of books Charles Dickens published in the 1840s. The American critics expressed negative opinions of works like The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby that were "America specific" and independent of those expressed by English critics.

 I would argue that the key to understanding the initial commercial failure of Moby Dick by Herman Melville is held by looking at Herman Melville's popularity BEFORE Moby Dick was published.

 Specifically, he had popularity, and an Audience, based on Audience familiarity with his travel narratives. I think what went wrong when Moby Dick was published was specifically that he confused his Audience.  That Audience included both the folks who actually bought and read his earlier books, and liked them, as well as critics who were only interested in Moby Dick because it was by someone who had sold books in the past and had an existing Audience.

 That existing Audience- wasn't dissuaded from critics from not liking Moby Dick- they themselves did not like Moby Dick because it was so out there.  If the people who bought and read 500+ Novels in the mid 19th century- and that would have been everyone who read Novels, period- had liked Moby Dick, the critics would have come around.  If Moby Dick had been serialized, and the Audience for printed matters had glommed on to Moby Dick for whatever reason, the critics would have come around.

 A "blame the critics" approach to describing the failed initial reception of Moby Dick is wrong, one might as well blame the Audience for existing.

  It is also worth comparing the eventual popularity of Herman Melville and Moby Dick to Charles Dickens and his crowning achievement,  David Copperfield.  They were published almost within a year of one another in London, so it's a good comparison.  If you look at a Google Ngram comparing the frequency of mention of the two Authors names between 1840 and 2000,  Charles Dickens "takes off" in the mid 1860s and Herman Melville is flat well into the 20th century.  Since the 1960s both Authors have been flat, with Charles Dickens reasonably more popular then Herman Melville, but with both in the same league.

 If you add Jane Austen to the mix (another "revived" Author) you can see that she has blown both men out of the water in the late 20th century.   In the Dickens/Melville/Austen graph you can also see the impact of the earlier Austen revival during a time when Melville was essentially dormant.

 You can also add the names of the works: David Copperfield & Moby Dick, to the Ngram that contains the names of the Authors, Herman Melville and Charles Dickens.  This Ngram shows that Moby Dick the work is almost more popular or as popular as the Author, whereas David Copperfield is only a fraction of the popularity of Charles Dickens.

  I think the irony of the initial failure/eventual success of Moby Dick by Herman Melville is that it has literally inspired a hundred years of writers to write books people don't want to read.  Think about it, think about the later impact of literary modernism on the Novel and the shape that the Novel takes as an Art form during the 20th century.  Moby Dick has inspired a century of terrible writers to actually be terrible on the theory that after they are dead some egg head will finally "get" their brilliance.  Personally, I'd rather throw in with Charles Dickens then Herman Melville.

Published 11/30/23

The Scarlet Letter (1850) 

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Boston, Massachussets

Massachussets: 22/30

  The Scarlet Letter is another 1001 Books to Read Before You Die, 1001 Novels: A Library of America- not surprising considering it is a stone cold classic of 19th century American Literature. Hawthorne dominated the 19th century American Literature portion of the 1001 Books list- five or six titles I think, compared to just one in the 1001 Novels project, which seems to limit authors to one book- or at least one book per region.  I haven't come across any repeaters in this New England portion of the project. 

  I didn't write a review of The Scarlet Letter for the 1001 Books project until 2018- it just seems like a book literally everyone has read in high school.

 

  In 1001 Novels terms it represents central Boston- it's the most central Boston book- the map for this project has it just south of Bunker Hill.  Only Union Dues by John Sayles, is more centrally located inside Boston.

2018 Review:

Demi Moore played Hester Pyrnne in the famously terrible 1995 movie version of The Scarlet Letter.

1001 Books to Read Before You Die

The Scarlet Letter (1850)
by Nathaniel Hawthorne

  The Scarlet Letter is another fun read from high school English class.   Published in 1850, it is, I think, the first published American novel still widely read. The Last of the Mohicans was published two decades earlier, but I don't think people really read that book anymore. The Last of the Mohicans is also too long to be read in the context of a modern high school schedule, and The Scarlet Letter has almost the perfect length to be read in full by a high school student.

   Listening to the audiobook this time around, I was struck by at just how very dark The Scarlet Letter is.  It's one thing to know that the language is "darkly romantic," another to actually hear the language spoken aloud.  Were it not for the Puritan wilderness location, you could call The Scarlet Letter gothic. And even if The Scarlet Letter isn't technically gothic, you could forgiven for describing it that way.

   Honestly, it's hard to find much of the dialogue comical when heard aloud.  Again, I was struck that listening to The Scarlet Letter instead of reading it raised the possibility of a satirical element that I totally missed reading it in school.  Googling satire in The Scarlet Letter brings up a wide range of sources, so that's one point against high school me.  Like I said, hearing it, the humorous/satirical intent is apparent. 

Published 12/4/23

Mystic River (2001)

by Dennis Lehane

East Buckingham, Boston Massachussets 

Massachussets: 24/30

  It took me forever to make it through Mystic River because I decided to make it my court/jail book- i.e. the book I read when I'm sitting around waiting for a jail visit or a court hearing.  Not a great look for the book since it basically guarantees that I will be in a bad mood each time I read said book.   Once I took the book out of my briefcase it took me about an hour to read the last three quarters after months trying to get through the first 100 pages.

  Mystic River is a hit two times over- the book is still in print and considered a minor classic of the genre (police procedural adjacent) and the movie (2003), has an 89 on Rotten Tomatoes- from both fans and critics.   Finishing the book had me wanting to actually watch the film- which is almost unheard of in my experience.   The crime: the murder of the daughter of a reformed local gangster in west Boston slum neighborhood takes a back seat to the neighborhood itself and the shared history of the cops and criminals, perpetrators and victims, who animate the action.

  Lehane shows himself a savvy writer of fiction in terms of the way he manipulates the reader with his use of multiple unreliable narrators- it's one thing to identify the unreliable narrator, quite another to figure out where everything is headed.  Considering the continuing popularity of the book and film I won't spoil the ending, but I did think the ultimate revelation was a little cheap.  Guess I'm in the minority there judging from the twenty plus years of rave reviews from critical and popular audiences.

Published 12/4/23

The Handmaid's Tale (1985)- inexplicably listed as 1997 on the official website

by Margaret Atwood

Harvard Library, Cambridge, Massachussets

Massachussets: 25/30

 The Handmaid's Tale is the last of the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die/1001 Novels: A Library of America crossover titles in New England.  There were a total of five- the only non-Massachussets crossover title is A Prayer for Owen Meaney (1989) by John Irving- which didn't even make my top 10 for the Northern New England section. The Handmaid's Tale is a stone cold lock for any canonical list anywhere- it was already at that point when the editors included it on the 1001 Books list in 2008, and it certainly hasn't gotten less relevant since then, what with the television show starting in 2017 and growing after 2019, when the SEQUEL to The Handmaid's Tale won a split Booker Prize.   Hard to imagine a sequel winning such a major literary award, but I surmise there was some embarrassment on the part of the Judges panel that Atwood didn't win back in 1986 when it lost out to The Old Devils- still in the old white guys era back then.

  If I'm not mistaken Atwood is the first non-American author on the 1001 Novels list.   I can tell from the review I wrote back in 2018 for the 1001 Books project that I was already over The Handmaid's Tale.  I don't remember when I read it for the first time, but I certainly can remember the paperback copy that was on a variety of my book shelves over the years. 

1001 Books to Read Before You Die Review

Published 4/10/18
The Handmaids Tale (1985)
 by Margaret Atwood

   I wasn't hugely surprised when Hulu announced a Season 2 for their smash hit television version of The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood.  The book, of course, has no sequel, so presumably they'll be writing a new chapter.  I haven't finished the television series yet, but the idea that they would write a whole second season out of nothing doesn't offend me as I thought it might.  The book itself is more or less genre fiction, Margaret Atwood's literary pedigree.  What is unusual about The Handmaid's Tale is the anti-feminism which animates The Republic of Gilead, the authoritarian dictatorship which has replaced the United States of America in Atwood's alternate present of the book.

   The key, animating fact in Atwood's dystopia is a precipitous decline in the birth rate, brought about by a poorly understood intersection of chemicals and ungodliness.  This decline spurs a shadowy network of "think tanks" called the sons of Jacob, to come up with their new model society, which combines elements of New England Puritanism and Mormon pluralism with more far a field influences like Asian-style quietism and an economy that functions without money.

   Offred's gilded cage is contrasted both with her life before Gilead, where she married a divorced man (illegal under the new regime) and gave birth successfully to a child who was taken by the new regime; the other alternative is being dispatched to "The Colonies" (roughly the south and south east) where a series of nuclear explosions and chemical attacks have rendered large swaths of territory uninhabitable.   Offred isn't stoked about her role as a breeding object, but she isn't exactly leaping at the prospect of a nasty, brutish and short existence in the Colonies.

  There is no denying the visual power of the imagery- which is well take by the television version.  The book, I think, is clumsier, in a way, particularly in the way Atwood included a thirty page addendum written from the far future, presenting the book as an authentic historical manuscript.  I understand why you would do that in the context of dystopian fiction, but it seems like a genre move. 

Published 12/11/23

On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

by Ocean Vuong

Hartford, Connecticut

Connecticut: 9/9

    Here we are at the end of Connecticut and almost the end of Chapter One of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America Project, Pointed Firs, Granite Coves & Revolution.   I actually read On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous- bought the hard back in fact, but never posted a review because... I just didn't have much to say about it- Vuong comes from a background in poetry, and On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous is a poetic bildungsroman adjacent tale about growing up in rust-belt Connecticut from the perspective of an LGBT teen/young adult.   I remember enjoying the fact of the location- rust belt New England, and the fact that the POV was that of an Asian-American immigrant who did not come from a privileged background.   

  Even though I grew up in the Bay Area I knew few Asian-American families who were disadvantaged.  This wasn't the case for white kids I knew- my prep school had plenty of disadvantaged white, black and latino students but no disadvantaged Asian student.   Same thing in college.  In law school I finally met some Asian-Americans from working class backgrounds, but they were high achievers.  Anyway, it's all to say that I appreciated Vuong's POV and I think it's a great addition to the canon of American bildungsromans.

Published 12/12/23

The Wishing Hill (2013)

by Holly Robinson

Newbury, Massachusetts

Massachussets: 26/30

   Coming to the end of the New England chapter of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America is a reminder of how geographically specific and universally understood the idea of "New England" is by the average American.  There's an argument about the proximity of southern Connecticut to New York, but other than that everyone knows that New England is Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachussets.   Over the next 13 chapters, there will be less consistency-  by necessity places like the "Midwest" "South" and "West" will be split between multiple chapters.  It's also worth noting, coming to the end of Chapter 1 of 14, that all the books take place entirely inside the United States- I don't think any of the characters have left the country for any significant amount of time in any book.

    UNTIL TODAY- because The Wishing Hill by Holly Robinson takes place partially in Mexico where the main character shows up recently divorced and pregnant by her local gardener in chapter one, only to be called home to Newbury Mass, where her dramatic (literally an actress) mother is in the hospital after a fall.  Mom lives next door to her semi-estranged sister and... well...the plot is a variation on what I have begun to term Hallmark Movie lit- involving a woman who returns to her "home town" from some place more sophisticated and struggles with whether to stay or return to where she started.

    I found the idea of a single American wanting to give birth and raise a baby in Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, to be risible.  At least you would want to give birth inside the United States to forestall any questions of citizenship for the child.   The struggle between daughter and mother had its moments- the family secrets unraveled by the plot weren't stupid or boring, but the main character was pretty lame, even by the standards of domestic fiction.  So much incessant worrying on every page.  I really couldn't stand this book.

Published 12/13/23

Vida (1979)

by Marge Piercy

Cape Cod, Massachusetts 

Massachussets: 27/30

   I was prepared to just really trash this book until I saw a blurb from her 1970 novel, Dance the Eagle to Sleep, by none other than Thomas Pynchon (it's pronounced pynSEAN, fyi).  His dedicated website at Pomona College lists nine blurbs, the last in 1996 (for George Saunders).   Vida was, for me, another extremely tedious entry from the 1001 Novels list, featuring the eponymous heroine who is on the run for a series of bombings against corporate targets in the late 1960's. 

   The book takes place all over the Northeast and Atlantic, with huge portions taking place in New York City and upstate Vermont.  The Cape Cod location of the title is a safe house where Vida spends a couple weeks.  Unclear to me why Vida what be slotted in for Cape Cod, seems like there would be plenty of titles that are set entirely on the Cape.  If anything, this felt like a strong New York City title. 

   Having grown up in the SF Bay Area in the 80's and 90's, I am well familiar with the subculture of 60's activists who had to go "underground" for various reasons.  A half century later, it all seems pretty silly, particularly if you compare the literature of the American left, with, I don't know, analogous writers in places like China and Vietnam, were such issues were literally a matter of life and death.   The life or death angle here was, I felt, a little forced.  

    Also worth mentioning that 18/27 books have women authors.  It seems very clear at this point that this a "My canon, my rules" situation with editor Susan Straight, and she wants us to be reading women authors.  I'm all for it, but I'd like the books to be better, or at least less domestic.  This book, at least, is not about a woman struggling with motherhood.

Published 12/18/23

Leaving Pico (1999)

by Frank X. Gaspar

Provincetown, Massachusetts 

Massachusetts: 28/30

     Provincetown is on the tip of Cape Cod- I've been there several times with my partner, who is a huge fan.  There are several different elements to the Provincetown mix, chief among them the gay population/summer scene, a Massachussets family destination and a local Portuguese fishing community that has been there for centuries at this point.   It's hard to miss the Portuguese family vibe, they have churches and a large part in the public culture of the town.  I was still a little surprised to find that Provincetown is represented in the 1001 Novels: A Library of America by Frank X. Gaspar and Leaving Pico- a small press title about a boy growing up with a single mom in said Portuguese community.  Leaving Pico wasn't any kind of a hit- it barely even has an Amazon product page which...is tough to do. 

  I did enjoy the intimate depiction of the waterside community that is always submerged in the summer when I visit- I recognized the depiction of the family home from walking around Provincetown, and knew almost all the places they visited during the course of the book.  It's not surprising that this is one of the first and only books in the 1001 Novels project where the narrator does not leave the town where the action takes place.  He takes a couple of trips in his Grandfather's crude sailing ship but other than that it is Provincetown all the way.  

  One of the central plot points involves his mom "running off" to Florida with her paramour, and when she gets back she makes it clear that she doesn't want to see someplace, anyplace, other than Provincetown where she has spent her entire life. 

Published 12/18/23

White Ivy (2020)

by Susie Yang

1 Bennett Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 

Massachusetts: 29/30

   Wow, one more book to go first the first of fourteen Chapters in the 1001 Books project. 43 titles out of Northern New England. 48 from Southern New England for a total of 91 titles for the first Chapter.  1001/14 nets out to an average of 71.5 books per Chapter, so that means New England is overrepresented by 20 titles.  That makes sense since New England is probably the most literary physical landscape in America and contains multiple centers of authorial activity, universities, writers retreats, big cities, etc. 

   White Ivy comes heavily promoted as an Asian-American spin on The Talented Mr. Ripley with a young, female protagonist.   It made a sales splash when it came out- the library copy I checked out had a Jenna's Book Club sticker on the front.  Yang's protagonist is pleasingly imperfect- a poor student turned indifferent grade school teacher who reconnects with her childhood crush, a class mate and scion of an upper-crust WASP family (his deceased father was a senator!)  

   I found most of White Ivy pretty excruciating but thought the whole book was redeemed by the last fifty page, where the Ripley comparisons finally come into focus.  I originally tried to listen to the Audiobook but I just couldn't take it, I'm glad I read the book instead. 

Published 12/20/23

Union Dues (1977)

by John Sayles

Boston, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 30/30

    That's it- the end of the Chapter 1- New England, 1,001 Novels: A Library of America.  It took forever to read this one because Amazon has some kind of Audible exclusive for it so you can't actually buy a physical copy on Amazon- bizarre!  I had to buy it from ABEbooks.com instead.   I like Sayles the film director- Matewan, Eight Man Out, and other movies.  Sayles was a writer before he was director and his early efforts include this novel, Union Dues.

  Like Vida, another book on the list about 70's era radicals in the Boston area, Union Dues suffers from a surfeit of political dialogue between 70's student radicals.  Holy cow, who gives a fuck. At times Union Dues felt like it was twice the actual length of its 370 pages.   There also ten page at a time depictions of life working at a meat factory in 70's Boston, and a couple of Police Officers who do everything but drop the N word in every other sentence.   Sayles actually writes out the Boston accents, so there are plenty of spelling oddities.  Other than that, I did enjoy the depictions of downtown 70's Boston- particularly the grittier parts.

    Glad to moving on from New England-  New York and New Jersey..

Alice Munro Died!

 Alice Munro Died!

  RIP to Alice Munro, Canadian short-story writer and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature.   I've read one of her books and listened to two Audiobooks- all in 2019.  She was one of the most notable omissions from the first edition of the 1,001 Books To Read Before You Die list, which was then corrected in the first revision.   Alice Munro has done more for the literary prestige of the short story in the past two decades than any than any other author.    For me, personally, she is a key author in developing this idea that the purpose of reading literature is to really familiarize yourself with the perspective of someone you might not have considered in the past.  Certainly Munro's landscape of quiet Canadian towns and cities was as foreign to my as any other perspective I've encountered.  She also was a master at giving voice to less sophisticated characters in a way that many other writers try and fail to duplicate.  

Alice Munro, Canadian short story writer and Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Published 1/8/19
Too Much Happiness (2009)
by Alice Munro


   One of my major Audiobook "fill" categories is Nobel Prize winners.  I thought that all the Nobel Prize in Literature winners would automatically have all their books available in Audiobook format, or at least those who won in the past twenty years.   Just to take recent winners- there are no available Audiobooks for 2014 winner Patrick Modiano (French.)  This is despite the fact that Modiano's works are typically translated into English and remain in print (they were all on the shelf at a recent visit to Foyle's Books in London.)

  BUT- Alice Munro- Canadian Apostle of the Short Story- she won in 2013 (which I did not even know) and ALL of her books are available as Audiobooks.  She's got 14 volumes of short stories published between 1968 and 2012, and then there are a handful of separate compilations. I selected Too Much Happiness, more or less randomly, because it was published shortly before she won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and I'm of the opinion that the Nobel Prize prefers to give the award to Authors who are still doing their best work.

  I think the Audiobook and the short story go well together, in the same way that the novel really fits the paperback/hardback physical book format.  It's easy to dip in and out of an Audiobook, vs when I read a physical book,  I don't like to reset my attention frame every half hour.   Munro's Wikipedia tag line is that she revolutionized the architecture of the short story, especially the tendency to move backward and forward in time.    That last clause really resonates with me, "the tendency to move backward and forward in time," which has to be one of the techniques of writers that I most frequently call out after reading an entry on the 1001 Books list.   It's a technique I associate with the novel, specifically with the high modernists, though by mid century it was making it's way in the mainline literature.

    It strikes me that Munro has an incredibly low profile for the first North American to win the Nobel in Literature since Toni Morrison won a decade earlier.  I guess that win is reflected in the availability of her books in Audiobook format, but I'd be hard pressed to name a single person I've ever met who has read her, let alone would name Munro as one of their favorite authors.

   Of course, I'm not going to trash a collection of Munro short stories, but like all short story collections I'm left grasping at a sold critical approach.  Talk about themes? Individual stories?  All of the stories are set in contemporary Canada except for the title story, about an 19th century Russian mathematician who was the first woman to teach in Sweden (Nobel Prize committee catnip, no doubt.)

 I listened to Too Much Happiness in a variety of circumstances- it took me 40 days to get through the 11 hours.  Some of Munro's protagonists are men, most are women. Domestic relationships gone wrong feature strongly in several of the stories in this collection.  Too Much Happiness is another beast entirely- I wonder if it could be a novella, it seemed long enough on it's own.  I happened to be flying back from Iceland when I listened to most of Too Much Happiness, and I thought the Russian/Scandinavian angle was particularly well thought out and clever.

Published 3/28/19
Runaway (2004)
 by Alice Munro

  I like these characteristics of Canadian author Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2013:  First, all her Audiobooks are available without a wait in the Public Library Libby Audiobook app.  Second, all her books are short stories, so listening to one of her books never requires a huge listening effort.  What I don't like about Munro would be her limited range, at least from what I've seen in two books, as described by the Wikipedia page for this book:
   
There are eight short stories in the book. Three of the stories ("Chance", "Soon", and "Silence") are about a single character named "Juliet Henderson".

"Runaway" – a woman is trapped in a bad marriage.
"Chance" – Juliet takes a train trip which leads to an affair.
"Soon" – Juliet visits her parents with her child Penelope.
"Silence" – Juliet hopes for news from her adult estranged daughter Penelope.
"Passion" – A lonely small town girl flees a passionless relationship with an outsider.
"Trespasses" – Lauren, a young girl, meets an older woman, Delphine, who is too interested in her.
"Tricks" – Robin, a lonely girl, lives life alone due to bad luck and misinterpretation.

  I mean there you have it, Alice Munro in a nutshell. Every story is about women on the margins of society for various reasons, isolated by domestic violence, mental illness or just plain bad luck. 

Published 12/2/19
The Beggar Maid (1978)
by Alice Munro

   Replaces: A Maggot by John Fowles

  Canadian short-story specialist Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in 2013, five years after the first revision of the 1001 Books list, where she was included (2 books) for the first time.  Her omission from the original edition is a minor embarrassment- especially when you look at the over representation of other recent Nobel winners like J.M. Coetzee.    Munro was awarded her Nobel for being a "contemporary master of the short story," but The Beggar Maid is as close as she gets to a Novel.  Indeed, a reader could be forgiven for thinking (as I did while listening to the Audiobook) that The Beggar Maid is a novel, since every story is about the same woman- Rose, and the episodes proceed in largely chronological order over the course of her lifetime.

  Like many of Munro's protagonists, Rose is a woman from a disadvantaged socio-economic background in rural Canada who transcends her origins but faces difficult choices along the way.  The Beggar Maid replaces A Maggot by John Fowles- a post-modernist metahistorical fiction  that confuses as much as it entertains, and Fowles himself is a marginally canonical figure if you look at 21st literary trends.  He scores a fat zero for diversity purposes, and his literary reputation is less secure then his (strong) sales record and continued presence in international book stores.

Paul Auster Died!

 Paul Auster Died!

  RIP to Paul Auster!  I thought I would compile a post with all of my reviews of his novels- I read all of them in the course of the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list, where he was (IMO) dramatically over-represented in the first edition.  As anyone could gather from my reviews, I'm not a huge fan- I never have been, probably because I've never been one of those young, white, well-educated guys who thought he would move to NYC.  I distinctly remember being in NYC on my own (well, with friends anyway) in college and saying things like, "People who move here are idiots, you should only move to NYC AFTER you have some money or if you ALREADY have money."  Thirty years later I stand behind my college-age assessment, NYC is for suckers and it will eat you alive.

  My sense is that his status as a canonical author will basically be reduced to the New York Trilogy.  He began publishing at at time when the world wasn't particularly concerned with new or distinct voices and thus his relevance was never questioned while he was writing.  There is, however, no denying his status as the first Apostle of Hipster Brooklyn- whether that is a good or bad thing is a question best left for others, but on a recent visit earlier this year- my first where I actually stayed in Brooklyn,  I thought the Brooklyn that Auster and his ilk have wrought was a pretty fun place. 

  How many people were inspired by Auster to relocate to Brooklyn?  I think that is his ultimate legacy- as a progenitor of hipster Brooklyn.

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster remains relevant and in print- pictured above is an Art Speigelman drawn cover sequence for a recent re-print.

Published 5/2/17
The New York Trilogy (1987)
by Paul Auster

  The New York Trilogy is a collection of three "post-modern detective fiction" novellas, originally written and published separately in 1985 and 1986.  There is a limited overlap of characters, but the three novellas are not three separate stories about the same detective, a la Sherlock Holmes.  Rather they are three novellas that are thematically similar in that they blend elements of detective fiction with elements of the post-modern philosophical novel that is more often associated with French and German authors in this time period.  In any time period, ha ha.

  Although Auster was never part of my literary experience, I recognize that The New York Trilogy was and is popular, but I didn't find The New York Trilogy to be earth shattering work.  It may not even be the best book about an existentialist influenced detective to be published in 1987, because that is the same year that Douglas Adams published Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

   I'm sure these would have made a bigger impression if I'd read them closer to the original publication date, but 30 years later it just seems like one of any number of self consciously existentialist detective novels. 

Published 7/10/17
The Music of Chance (1990)
by Paul Auster

    Paul Auster is balls deep on the first edition of the 1001 Books list.  I was thinking about Auster while recently reading a book about the formation and maintenance of canons (called Canons), published around the same time as this novel.  The trend, in those days, was to oppose canons and critique the process of canon formation, often in the key of "dead, white men."  Ultimately, this critique foundered on the realities of institutional pedagogy: One has to teach something in freshman English, but it is this time period which gives us the concepts and vocabulary to accurately describe the canon forming process in the same way that I am attempting to describe it via the 1001 Books project.

  Most of the disparate essays in Canons deal with 19th century poetry, but one interesting essay on canon formation for American fiction between 1960 and 1975 makes some interesting empirical observations about what is essentially the current canon forming process.  The author's hypothesis is that the best place to start is the best seller list, and that you then overlay the best seller list with critical response- he doesn't differentiate between critical response before best seller status.

  If you want to apply this quick and dirty method to say, the current New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestseller list, you see quick results.  Of the 15 titles on this list, nearly half are automatically disqualified because the best-selling author has no critical audience.  These are titles by: David Baldacci, Nora Roberts, Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, Janet Evanovich, Dean Koontz and John Grisham.   To the extent that any of these writers are likely to sneak onto any literary canon, it will be with a single, early novel.   Almost every other author on the New York Times Hardcover Top 15 Bestseller list can be excluded with a single Google Search:  Elin Hilderbrand (writer of summer beach read novels according to her wikipedia page), Paula Hawkins (thrillers), Adriana Trigiani (YA fiction), Don Winslow (Police procedurals), Lee Child (Jack Reacher books).

  This leaves us with two possibilities:

1.  The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
2.  Beach House for Rent by Mary Alice Monroe

  Since the list is rolling, you have to imagine doing this  maybe 30-40 times over the course of a year, and then toting up points at the end, that would give you your best canonical candidates for fiction.   Looking at these two, Arundhati Roy, who ticks all the serious lit boxes AND doesn't write fiction very often, seems like the obvious choice.   If you were looking for one book to maintain literary relevance over the summer, it would be the Roy novel, and if you were going to bet on one book from this time period, it would be that one.

  Which all goes to say that the inclusion of so many Paul Auster titles on the first 1001 Books list represents another manifestation of this best seller/critical appeal overlay.  Auster sells books and he appeals to critics, this makes each of his books, even the non best-selling titles, candidates for canonical inclusion.  He, like other artists writing in the "present" benefit from the easy access to pre-canonical "best of" lists, typically organized by year.

  The Music of Chance is an interesting novel, like other of his books it blends dark action and European style philosophical musings, with a firm understanding of the role of genre in serious fiction.  His books are recognizable but slightly askew, they go down easy, but stay with you over time.

Published 10/25/17
Mr. Vertigo (1994)
by Paul Auster

  Man, Paul Auster just never stops churning out books combining existentialism, whimsy and memorable characters.  Mr. Vertigo is the first Auster joint I've seen that is set in the past- his current book 4 3 2 1 has portions that are set in the past, and this book has a narrator "looking back" from the present, but most of it takes place in the late 20's and early 30's. Walter Rawley is a motherless street urchin living in St. Louis.  He randomly meets Master Yehudi, the son of a Hungarian Rabbi, who promises Rawley that he can teach him to fly.  Yehudi and Rawley decamp to an isolated farm in Kansas, and a coming of age story ensues.

 Again, as you might expect from a Paul Auster novel, Mr. Vertigo is the least whimsical book to revolve around magic that one could possibly imagine.  Like all of his books before 4 3 2 1, Mr. Vertigo is short- under 300 pages.  It makes for a comically compressed third act, basically all of Rawley's life between the late 1930's and the present, covered in the course of 50 pages.   It practically invites the reader to skim, knowing that not much can happen in what remains of the book.

 Like other books from this portion of the 1001 Books list, Mr. Vertigo is, at best, a marginal selection. Sure, it's fun- a fun read for an afternoon sitting in an airport departure lobby, but the whole enterprise seems truncated.  I think I've made this observation before, but it often feels like Auster isn't trying particularly hard. I don't have a problem with it, but it seems like a consideration that would impact his canonical status, and the extent to which is represented within said canon.  I mean one Auster novel a decade, that makes sense to me. 

Published 1/19/18

Timbuktu (1999)
 by Paul Auster

  Timbuktu is the book Paul Auster wrote from the POV of a dog,  Mr. Bones, the faithful companion of a colorful hobo who calls himself Willy G. Christmas, despite being the child of Jewish holocaust survivors.  Like every Auster novel except 4 3 2 1, Timbuktu is read and done in a blink- under 150 pages, I believe.   Timbuktu is one of the first books I've read with a major homeless character portrayed in a complex and sympathetic way.  Christmas is no stereotypical hobo.  During the course of Timbuktu it is revealed that he was once a promising Columbia University undergraduate, a roommate, in fact, of a writer named Paul Auster.  Experimentation with drugs leads to a psychotic break and a life time of wandering, interspersed with winters spent at the home of his long-suffering mother.

   It is hard to imagine this as a canonical title- any canon- since Auster is so prolific and already well represented due to his combination of Americanness, commercial viability and critical success.   No surprise that Timbuktu was dropped from the 2008 revision of 1001 Books.

Published 4/5/18
The Book of Illusions (2002)
by Paul Auster

  This was an audiobook narrated by the author himself.  I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often. I wanted to quote this from the Wikipedia page about the book:

The Book of Illusions revisits a number of plot elements seen in Auster's first major work, The New York Trilogy.
These include:
The protagonist driving himself into isolation
Extended focus on a character's (fictional) body of work
Writers as characters
A character disappearing, only to resurface years later, having spent some of the intervening years wandering and doing odd jobs
Parallels drawn between a work of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the plot itself
Notebooks (also in Oracle Night)
A meta-referential ending that places the protagonist as the author of the book itself

     I'm sure I'd recommend this audiobook edition, read by the author himself, over the print copy.   Auster is one of the most over-represented authors in the original 1001 Books list- up there with Coetzee, like they just didn't have enough non-white men to fill up the end of the book, or they got lazy towards the end.  

Published 9/30/17
4 3 2 1 (2017)
by Paul Auster

    Is Paul Auster a great American novelist?  Sure, that is a loaded question in 2017, does such a thing even exist in 2017?  Isn't the whole idea of the great American novelist and the great American novel itself problematic in so much as it invokes the specter of white male class and privilege? Up until the publication of 4 3 2 1 in January of this year, you could argue that Auster himself agreed that there was no point in writing the great American novel- simply judging by his books, which are typically short and elliptical, consciously eschewing the kind of length and solidity that typically coincide with books judged to have a shot at fulfilling the manifest destiny of the great American novel.

    If you look at Auster's career up to this point- what have you got?  Does he have an Audience- certainly, popular and critical.  He's had best sellers, all his books get the full review treatment and he's dabbled in successful films. On the other hand, he's near 30 years into his career as a well regarded novelist and he has yet to back a first level literary prize- No Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, no National Book Award (that seems pretty amazing considering some of the books which have won in the past 30 years).   He doesn't even appear in the long odds section of the Ladbrook's 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature betting table.

   He's also got a reputation for writing literary genre fiction and a thematic obsession with the vagaries of fate and existentialism- all traits that have helped secure book sales in the English speaking world, but neither of those characteristics have endeared him to the people who hand out major literary prizes. 

  And as I was saying earlier, before the publication of 4 3 2 1 you could say that Paul Auster hasn't won a major literary award because he isn't trying to win a major award.  He just didn't give a fuck, wasn't trying, and was content with his lot as a top selling "serious" author in late 20th and early 21st century America.  After all, that's not a bad place to be for a writer of serious fiction.

   But 4 3 2 1 changes that analysis, because here he has a written a book that begs to be considered for major literary prizes, and in fact, it has made the 2017 Booker Prize short-list.  The current Ladbrook's betting chart has him second to last place at 5/1.  The inclusion of 4 3 2 1 on the shortlist was itself the biggest surprise of the 2017 shortlist announcement.   It was a surprise because 4 3 2 1 hasn't been particularly well received by critics, and at a very solid 850 pages it is not a light read. It's hard to imagine any casual readers dipping into 4 3 2 1 unless they are die hard Auster fans or they've been told that this is "the" book of the season/year, or a contender for that status.   Before the Booker Shortlist announcement, I was of the opinion that 4 3 2 1 was a ridiculously self-indulgent flop by an author who has blown his chance at long-term canonical status.

  After reading 4 3 2 1, I want to hail it as a major work- partially because I read the damn 850 pages and saying it is a great book justifies the investment of time.  I think an aspect of this book which makes it difficult to judge is the unabashedly retro bildungsroman story of a non-religious  male Jew growing up in the New York City in the mid to late 20th century.   The meta fictional device that somewhat obscures the retro feel is that Auster tells four different versions of the same life, from birth through young adulthood.  Each version is different as it relates the narrator and his personal life, but the "outside world" remains the same in each version.  For example, the student unrest at Columbia around the time of the Vietnam War, and the Vietnam War itself, and all major historical events from the time period depicted remain true to "life."

  Any cursory survey of the reviews of 4 3 2 1 make it clear that the narrator is a stand in for Auster himself.  One important plot point, the sudden death of a friend at summer camp when he was a young adolescent- occurs both in the real life of Paul Auster and in 4 3 2 1.   Auster manages to spell the overwhelming white/maleness by making his narrator gay/bisexual in some of his timelines.  But still- 4 3 2 1 bears a strong resemblance to the work of Phillip Roth and Saul Bellow.  He's moved forward a few decades in time (from Saul Bellow, at least), but the story of a hyper-literate Jewish American growing up in the New York area in the mid to late 20th century is one of the most traversed literary pathways of 20th century literature.

  4 3 2 1 is a book written to win literary prizes, so it's ultimate value is likely to be judged by it's ability to bring home said prizes.  At least a National Book Award.

Event Preview: Mvtant Releases New Track from Forthcoming LP Electric Body Horror

 Event Preview:

Mvtant Releases New Track From Forthcoming LP 

Electric Body Horror

"Kanashibari"

   Mario was working with Joseph Mvtant before I was back in the picture with Dream Recordings, but I heartily approve of the man and his music- he tours as a one piece, he tours A LOT and he's got a positive attitude about posting on social media.  His streaming numbers have been the issue.  We released his compilation record back in April of 2021 and his Spotify monthly number was under 2000.   Already at this point, we knew he was touring, that he had toured, that people liked the live show etc.  So we were surprised and alarmed when, after that release, his streaming number didn't move. 

   At the time, we chalked it up to the ongoing COVID issues surrounding touring, the idea being that he couldn't really go out and play shows like he wanted to, and was capable of doing.  So, my specific reaction to that situation- this is like- 2022 or so, was to suggest that we do a tape only covers album that would allow us to put another LP worth of material onto Spotify and associate him with the acts that he covers- that being one of algorithmical principles of streaming: Like attracts like.   So I had that idea in 2022 and then the tape was released in July of 2023.  I think that was the right move because it got him above 2000 monthly listeners and then eventually to 3000 monthly listeners before we released the first single from this LP, his first, original songs LP that isn't a compilation. 

   We released the first single two weeks ago, which was a bit of a rush job from the label perspective but was a function of the artist looking at it from his own perspective (understandably)- that he wanted merch for his upcoming tour, that everything was taking too long (common complaint with artists and the vinyl production process no matter how much you may caution them about potential production issues.)  But, my conversations with Mario have been, "Well, do what you want and what he wants."  An artist who has less than 5000 monthly listeners, it's more a goal to simply credibly release the record- the vinyl record, the distribution to DSP's and some level of marketing- these days you don't really need "PR" at the lower levels of the industry because social media can get you to the same place (i.e. not very far).

  If you release a record for an Artist with 5000 monthly listeners and you end up multiplying the number ten fold, say, to 50,000, that's going to be more a function of those 5000 listeners actually LIKING the songs and LISTENING to them more than once.  Spotify is the ultimate truthteller in that regard, because if you have some amount of fans- a measurable amount, and you tour, and you put out your record in a physical format, and at the end of the year or whatever cycle you have, the number hasn't increased... that means that the people who ALREADY listen to your music don't like your songs very much.  It means they haven't been listening to your music month after month, or obsessively within the same month, and they haven't been telling their friends about you, or playing your music for your friends. 

   However, if you put out an actual record, you have an additional data point, which is whether the actual record sells or not.  There are plenty of artists out there who haven negligible Spotify streaming numbers but are capable of selling hundreds if not thousands of vinyl records.  Similarly, there are plenty of (mostly older) artists who can sell dozens, hundred and thousands of concert tickets without the commensurate streaming numbers, and vice versa to all those metrics.  The point being that you have to do all these things to be able to measure the results, and if you don't have multiple points of measurement, success on a single data point can be deceptive or false. 

  Specifically, streaming numbers are easily increased via manipulation.  Paying for the use of a "streaming farm" or a service that contracts with a streaming farm is easy enough and although I haven't looked into it, I'd bet it is pretty affordable- i.e. I'm sure you could obtain measurable results with under 500 dollars a month.  My sense is that is a route 100% embraced by artists as a means to essentially trick the different parts of the music industry: labels, booking agents, managers, or it's something that artists and managers work on together.  My sense is that the labels don't do this directly but that perhaps they don't put a stop to it if the artist is doing it on their own account. 

  Generally speaking, you can presume that monthly streaming numbers under a hundred thousand are legit, beyond that, there is reason to interrogate any artist that shows a monthly streaming figure above five million listeners a month.  At that point, it likely pays to spend the money in terms of how it increases your ability to book bigger venues etc.  It also increases the likelihood of exposure, such as when one of these sort of artists books an arena tour and it flops.  That happens all the time, particularly in hip hop.   My sense is that the practice is endemic in the world of hip hop, that it happens often in the world of non-US genres- K-Pop, Afrobeat, etc and that it is less prevalent in the world of rock, indie, folk etc, because those folks aren't familiar with the underlying scamming strategies.   Any Top 200 Billboard artist is potentially suspect.

   The thing I have learned about Mvtant over the past few years is that he does sell records- -plenty of them- no worries there.  I've learned that he tours like a literally demon- that box is very much checked.  I know that his Spotify streaming numbers are of concern to his booking agent, and his low number limits his fee when he tours, and therefore it is in everyone's interest to move that number up.  And I know that in the last week he has finally moved above 4000- 4379 as of today, but it represents upward movement after the release of a single from a forthcoming record.   From my perspective, that of the label, the data looks promising.  I'm sure there will be poachers soon enough, which is how you know you've succeeded it at my level of the business:  When the poachers show up to take your artists. 

  

Event Preview: Trit95 Announces Self-Titled Debut LP on Dream Recordings

                       Trit 95 Vinyl LP pre-order link

Event Preview:  Trit95 Announces Self-Titled Debut LP on Dream Recordings

   Very excited that this Vinyl record is being released on Dream Recordings.   This blog began as a "local music blog" back when those were themselves a rarity, music blogging either being non-locally oriented or located in New York.  One of the thing I learned during that period is that people who participate in a local music scene are very interested in reading about themselves but rarely interested in reading anything other than that.  Who could blame them?  When I stopped writing about local music, I lost most if not all of that audience.  One thing readers have proven NOT to be interested in over the years is blog posts about bands on my own label.  I've spent plenty of time going back and editing this blog- basically deleting the original posts and grouping them together thematically, and I know that the posts that generated the least interest over times were those that dealt with my own personal record label and those bands.  People don't come to this blog to read about those things.

   This record is a compilation of all the tracks Trit95 has self-released, mixed and mastered for the first time, and produced as a vinyl record.  It's been a great experience, and it has reinforced some observations I've made over the years about working with artists, specifically, that it is much easier to work with an artistic person if you can speak to them face to face.  That really goes for everything- trying to do things over phone, or text or email is 100% more difficult than a face to face meeting, so the fact that Tristan lives in San Diego and could actually see Mario and talk to him (Mario Orduno), was great. 

  I've loved his patient/nonchalant attitude about the process- a common experience for me over the years is that you are putting out a record by an artist with little or no prior experience in the business of music and no representation at any level.  As a result, they are often anxious- of course, because it's important to them and want to rush the process.  I often advise people who are seeking to hire me as a lawyer that the one thing I can not abide from a client is impatience, because it simply does not allow me to do my job properly.  I can't say the same thing to artists- that is what Mario is for- because I would not be good at handling those sort of relationships- but the feeling of waiting for an inexperienced artist to finish up a record and then moving IMMEDIATELY to the "when is it coming out?" stage is common and frustrating- not only for me, I'm sure but for other labels as well.

  I have high hopes for this record, even though it's a compilation of previously material. I think... the way we've handled it and Trit95's lack of prior vinyl releases is enough to make it legit.  I'm concerned that he's going to get poached from us before we get to put out our agreed upon LP of original material, but that is very much part of the business.

   

Movie Review: Civil War (2024) d. Alex Garland

 

Western Forces flag from the film Civil War (2024) d. Alex Garland

Movie Review

Civil War (2024)

d. Alex Garland

   I haven't written about movies since I wrapped up my Criterion Collection phase, which lasted a couple years.  One of the things that I noticed, writing about movies on my blog, is that so many people have critical opinions about movies that is pointless to try to add something.  Contrast this to the considerable paucity of opinions about amazing authors like W.G. Sebald or Thomas Bernhard.  The other issue that I noticed writing about movies is that they are such a group production, starting with the planning of the shooting of the film, followed by the actual shooting of the film, followed by the post-shooting production of the film to the marketing and distribution, to write about a movie is not to write about an individual work of art but, largely speaking, a massively capitalized financial endeavor undertaken at the behest of a multi-national corporation. 

   Rare is the film that inspires me to state an opinion, but Civil War, directed by Alex Garland, is one of those films.  I am a huge fan of Garland which largely stems from me learning that he was the author of The Beach before he started working in film.  Starting in 2010 he directed a series of films that began to establish him as a significant creative voice- beyond the impact of the writing of The Beach and the film of the book, which he also directed and was released in 2010.  In 2014 Ex Machina was released. I didn't see it for years- I think it must have been on Netflix when I finally did, but there is no questioning that it is a really interesting movie. In 2018 he adapted Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, which didn't perform very well with audiences or critics, but I happen to think it an amazing movie, personally.  In 2020 there was season one of Devs, which I watched and enjoyed, again I thought Devs again demonstrated that Garland was working with a distinct, impressive, artistic vision.

   Civil War really delivers on this artistic promise in a way that I believe is not being fully appreciated by the discourse, which seems to be driven on either the message or non-message sent by centering the press in the narrative.  What the discussion over this artistic decision lacks is the literary context of the story of the film.  Garland has crafted a picaresque, or tour of horrors, that relates clearly to artistic antecedents extending to the Odyssey and older.  His choice of war photography/journalism as his vehicle is the only option available to him, or anyone else, to tell this story.

   Compare the story of a contemporary Civil War to the experience of Goya, who, between 1808 and 1814, toured Spain to document the Napoleonic Invasion in a series of 82 etchings.  They are currently on display at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, apparently for the first time ever (?) and I had them in mind when I saw Civil War because I'd visited the museum the day before and seen the exhibition.   Goya, following the practice of the time, simply traveled around Spain as a gentleman and took sketches which he then turned into etchings.  The etchings are frank and intimate, the war photography of their time.  Back then, people can, and often did, set up picnics and viewing parties for battles on nearby hills- it was a practice that extended through the start of the Civil War in the United States, and it was a different mode of warfare.

   Garland, seeking to tell a contemporary story, needs contemporary tellers, people present to document the horror.  Each scene in Civil War is a different stop on the tour of horrors, meant to illustrate a different aspect of the overall message, which is that war is a horror.  There should be no issue regarding what Garland's hidden message is when it is right there in plain sight.  That message is enough, and it's a message that has been delivered more or less consistently, interspersed with the opposite opinion, that war is the highest glory of man, for thousands of years.

  I can understand why a lay viewer might not LIKE Civil War- there is plenty not to like for a viewer who is just out for a Sunday matinee at the local AMC.  My partner, for example, won't even see the film for her (justified and accurate) belief that the violence contained in the film is too much.  If you are a viewer looking for a really wide scope battle picture you are going to be disappointed by many of the slow and intimate scenes that largely revolve around dialogue.  If you have strong political beliefs of one kind or another you might take issue with what you might think are the hidden sympathies of the filmmaker.   These are all valid negative lay opinions about the film as a popcorn, matinee movie at the multiplex. 

  I can't understand why a critic would say Civil War is anything other than a great movie.  I believe every critical review I've surveyed fails to engage with the historical context of the artistic form- picaresque- that Garland is utilizing here.   Picaresque is not an art form with a moral imperative, it is from the 18th century and it is meant to simply usher the reader along through the literary equivalent of a series of pictorial engravings.  Each scene is Civil War is an actual "scene," the visual equivalent of a moving Goya etching from Los Desastres de la Guerra.  If you don't understand that connection from the past to the present, you don't understand the film. 

   

Harlem - 1,001 Books: A Library of America

 Harlem - 1,001 Novels: 

A Library of America

1.  The Street (1946) - Ann Petry

2.   Invisible Man (1955) - Ralph Ellison

3.  Passing (1929) - Nella Larsen

4.  Home to Harlem (1928) - Claude McKay

5.  If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) - James Baldwin

6.  Big Girl (2022) by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

7.  Ruby (1976) by Rosa Guy

8.  Stories From the Tenants Downstairs (2022) - Sidik Fofana

9.  Bodega Dreams (2000) - Ernesto Quinonez

10.  The Ballad of Black Tom (2016) by Victor LaValle

11.  Daddy Was A Number Runner (1970) - Louise Merriweather

12.  Hoops (1981) - Walter Dean Myers

13.  Cool World (1959) - Warren Miller

14.  A Hero Ain't Nothin But A Sandwich (1973) - Alice Childress

  Harlem was my favorite sub-chapter thus far in the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America list.  The top eight titles on that list of 14 are all really worth reading for any student of American literature.  This is also the first substantial body of non-white authors in all the states so far- that's all of New England and now New York.  I wouldn't insert my number one pick from the Bronx (Charming Billy by Alice McDermott) into a combined list above the five slot here.  There wasn't any point in this section where I felt like the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America was a waste of time, as has been the case at some points when I've been slogging through a second or third tier work of detective fiction set in upstate New York or rural New England.   Editor Susan Straight also included her first work of genre-science fiction/fantasy after snubbing H.P. Lovecraft in New England.  Her pick, The Ballad of Black Tom, was curious  but an interesting departure from the rest of the list.

   There was a greater sense of history in Harlem than the Bronx- writers of the Harlem Renaissance helped in that department, but the more recent books were interesting as well. All in all the strongest sub chapter yet.