MIDDLESEX

Jeffrey Eugenides. MIDDLESEX. Vintage, 2002.

This is a book club selection which I have given notice that I do not intend to read. I bought a copy several years ago thinking it was about a place in England. It is not. It is about the immigration experience in the USA, and later generations of a Greek family coping with gender-identity issues. Not that I object, but I do object to the "trends" manipulating my reading choices.

Will watch for one issue that annoys me--the idea that gender issues (diversity) are "caused" by abuse.

Will review from internet and participate in discussion.

THE SECRET HISTORY

Donna Tartt. THE SECRET HISTORY. Knopf, Penguin, 1992

629 pages. Much too long. Way too many words. A coming-of-age story of a group of Classics students at a Vermont university getting a bit too involved in their studies. Constant smoking and drinking. Constant peer pressure to comply as the price of admission/acceptance. Plot and character. The final few pages offer a bit more insight as a survivor looks back.

I am glad I read it as this title makes many lists of 100 Best... I will count it as 3 books. 

LINCOLN IN THE BARDO

George Saunders. LINCOLN IN THE BARDO. Bloomsbury, 2018.

Finished reading this experimental novel, winner of the Man Booker Prize, 2017,  on August 26, 2024. Sought it out because I've been following Saunders' Substack column Story Club, on reading and writing, and because Abraham Lincoln has always been my favourite famous American. The first time I ever had to give a speech in school, I spoke about him. It was back during the Civil War centennial, and all the media in our home, Readers Digest and National Geographic, were full of it.

I had to look up the meaning of "bardo"--which seems to be not a building but rather a Buddhist tradition of a transitional state where souls await their final placement.

I love the experimental nature of the style of this book. The "damn the rules" attitude. The presentation of voices as if they are dialogue in a stage play. The presentation of citations as if nothing more need be said of the jaundiced view of people and politics then and now. 

I love the idea of exploring attitudes towards death, burial, and the afterlife. Not one who is too interested in abstractions myself, and not of a faith group which puts much stress on an afterlife, I have not thought much about what happens after death. Our family prefers cremation; we have chosen a return to nature rather than solid physical memorializing of lost loved ones. So Saunders' imaging of Lincoln's dilemma is interesting. Visiting the mausoleum in private. Opening the coffin. Holding the body. Believing his son is still present; feeling when the soul departs. Very affecting, as is the juxtaposition of the president's grief with the grieving of families having lost and doomed to lose more loved ones in the years of civil war yet to come. 

A sad story leavened by the delusions and denial of several waiting souls, and the devious nature of one group, mostly impoverished and/or lower class, destined for the other place. 

The HOME for UNWANTED GIRLS

Joanna Goodman. The HOME for UNWANTED GIRLS. Harper, 2018.

Ladies Only Book Club pick. Not wild about the style which is too much telling and weak on matching POV and life experience. [words and images used which the POV character would not know of]  But the history and the emotions kept me hooked. The history of Quebec's funding orphanages run by nuns, and switching them over to asylums because the federal grants were greater. Unconscionable. And the lifetime, a whole generation, of mother and daughter longing for each other. And the damage done by loss of agency, hypocrisy, lies, forced labour, restricted access to the world, and abuse is heart-breaking. Maggie got pregnant at 15. Not sure who the father was as an uncle had raped her after her own father separated her from Gabriel, the love of her life. Elodie did not get adopted. 

Elodie = Melody without the M. I wish I knew that sooner as I had no idea how to pronounce the name.

THE HUNGRY SEASON

T. Greenwood. THE HUNGRY SEASON. Kensington, 2010.

A loaner from a writing group friend. The story of a family in crisis. Sam Mason, a writer; Mena, his actor wife; and Finn, their sixteen-year-old messed up son. All are grieving the loss of Finn's twin sister, Franny. They drive from San Diego to Vermont for the summer where they are disturbed by Sam's agent, Monty, and by an academic/stalker, Dale. Suspense surrounds the mystery of what happened to Franny and what will happen when needs collide. This one I stayed up all weekend to finish.

WHERE'S BURGESS?

 Laurie Elmquist. WHERE'S BURGESS? Orca, 2018.

My first ever "middle years" book which I bought at the library book sale because I have met the writer. Reece copes with change and losses--his missing frog, his parents' trial separation. 

IN A DRY SEASON

Peter Robinson. IN A DRY SEASON. Penguin,1999. 

I so miss Inspector Banks. I wish the television programs would return. Sometimes I cannot remember if I have read a title before of if I just saw it on TV.

This story moves back and forth between the present, 1990s Yorkshire, and the past, WW II, when a Land Girl arrived to help out on a farm. The plot begins when, in a dry season, a reservoir or a man-made lake dries up and in the drowned village which emerges, a body is found.