HAG-SEED

 Margaret Atwood. HAG-SEED: William Shakespeare's The Tempest RE-TOLD. Knopf, 2016.

THE TEMPEST

 William Shakespeare. The Tempest. 1611.

THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES

 Eve Ensler. The VAGINA MONOLOGUES. Villard, 1998.

THE INCONVENIENT INDIAN

Thomas King. THE INCONVENIENT INDIAN: A Curious Account of Native People in North America. Doubleday, 2012.

SONG OF SOLOMON

 Toni Morrison. SONG OF SOLOMON. Knopf, 1977.

After Hagar’s funeral, Pilate and Milkman drive to Virginia to bury the bones she has treasured for years. The last scene is a Pieta, on and off Solomon’s Leap. I close the covers, the yellow jacket, reverently. I am propelled to walk. To stand outside the banquet hall and waylay revellers as they leave. To put my hand on their sleeve and say: Wait. There’s something I have to tell.

It is forty-three years old, published in 1977. It uses the n word. There is violence and death. Deaths. Vigilantism. Murders. Attempted murders. Attempted abortions. Suicides. Off the top of Mercy Hospital. Somewhere in Michigan, with Lake Superior visible. Gitchie Guma. The name is important. Names are important.

Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon is a story about the importance of names and naming. About divination. About the children’s rhyming verses and games which keep stories alive. Until Milkman can tease out the secrets. The names of the places and what happened there. The parents and grandparents who fled, and the great grandparents who flew. The women who caught and cached and cherished the stories and the coincidences which brought the generations home, to catch the stories before they died with the tellers.  

It’s a story about the importance of place. It’s a story about the importance of place to name, and place to person. About knowing who you are and who you come from and where you come from and why you’re here. And it’s about the intergenerational effects of trauma. About what happens to children who see their father blasted in two, shot off a fence, by neighbours who wanted his land. Children who have to pick up the pieces and bury them. Children to are visited by the ghosts of the dead, with riddles, with names, with pleas. Mysterious pleas.

It’s a story about what is not passed down to the son by the father who knows only death. The father who cannot love. The father who competes for the son’s loyalty, without offering any affection in return.

I imagine myself out walking, masked, alone, like the Ancient Mariner, stopping passersby to tell them the tale. How Hagar was dumped. Used and then abandoned. How it made her mad. But her mother calls for Mercy at the funeral and asserts to the nervous congregation: She was loved. How….

THE GREEN ROAD

 Anne Enright. THE GREEN ROAD. Norton, 2015

Margaret Laurence would have loved this book, as do I. In another country, Ireland, and another century, another matriarch, as difficult as Hagar Shipley in The STONE ANGEL, does a runner, in this case on Christmas Day. Before this happens, we meet, in separate chapters set in separate places and times, her now-adult children: Hanna, the new mother and actor with a drinking problem. Dan, the failed priest who escaped to New York to find himself just as AIDS arrived on the scene. Constance, at a mammography screening, thinking about her teenage children, her successful builder husband, her fancy car, and refusing to think about her mother. Emmet, who seems comfortable with non-gender specific fantasies, and works for low pay saving starving people in Africa. And the mother herself, Rosaleen, hyper-critical, manipulative, deciding without input to "sell the house" and move in with whichever adult child she chooses. The characters are beautifully sketched from the inside. Almost as beautifully is the west-Ireland landscape from Limerick to Ennis along the Flaggy Way and the green road itself, unpaved, along the coast. With views of Galway and Connemara. I enjoyed this story more than I did Enright's Booker award winner, The GATHERING. 

SKELETON MAN

 Tony Hillerman. SKELETON MAN. Harper, 2004.

Two planes crash in 1956, scattering bodies and body parts into the Grand Canyon. A passenger with a case of diamonds handcuffed to his wrist was never found. When one diamond shows up fifty years later after a burglary, the rightful heir goes looking, with the help of locals including retired Lt. Leaphorn, Chee, Bernie, Cowboy, & his cousin. Rain causes flash flooding. 

SON OF A TRICKSTER

 Eden Robinson. SON OF A TRICKSTER. Vintage, 2017.

Loved Eden Robinson's MONKEY BEACH and this first in the TRICKSTER TRILOGY has been on my MUST READ list for three years. Now I wish I had read it earlier, because I cannot separate some of the scenes in the television series from what happens in the novel. The series is a great adaptation. Beautiful and incredible. My only hesitation is that Jared seems quite old for high school, but that's probably just me, 50 years later. 

SON OF A TRICKSTER is the story of Jared, a high school student living with his Mom and her boyfriend on a reserve somewhere around Kitamat/Terrace in northern BC. Jared seems like one of those super-dependable kids (like the adult children of alcoholics); he pays his father's rent and his mother's hydro bills while coping with family breakup, violent step-fathers, unpredictable grandmothers, along with the usual teen concerns of school, friends, girlfriends, dead pets.  

On one level, Jared's is a story of a child living in the chaos of a bi-polar mother with her own generational trauma, hooking up with her dealers, not averse to a bit of criminal activity to assure her own business survives. Taking in boarders relegates Jared to a curtained off corner of the mouldy basement. There are scenes and lines which made me laugh out loud. There are scenes of magic which make me wonder what is imagined and what is cultural. Jared is a survivor and you cannot help but root for him. But when you think back about it, the one thing he does repeatedly is cry. He is living a PST-inducing life.

This story really made me sorry that I was unaware of the chaos and trauma of some of the high school students I taught. It made me look up some names, to see whether they were still alive. 

TRICKSTER DRIFT awaits but I am saving the pleasure. RETURN OF THE TRICKSTER is scheduled to be released this year. 

READING LIKE A WRITER

 Francine Prose. READING LIKE A WRITER: A Guide For People Who Love Books And For Those Who Want To Write Them. HarperCollins, 2006.

Wonderful. Lived up to my expectations. Especially the chapter on Chekhov. 

ALL the DEVILS ARE HERE

 Louise Penny. ALL the DEVILS ARE HERE. Minotaur, 2020.

My Thanksgiving Weekend gift to myself. The Gamache family goes to Paris. Wonderful. 

TIDE'S END

 Meredith Egan. TIDE'S END. Amity, 2019.

Taylor tries to get it together. Second in the Just Living series. 

BEST KEPT SECRET

 Jeffrey Archer. BEST KEPT SECRET. Audio book. 

Audio book was a gift. My first audio book, and my first Jeffrey Archer. Technically, listening was a problem on the PC because the CD kept repeating and I was not sure when the chapter ended. Worked much better on the laptop. The readers were good. The man sounding obnoxiously posh. The female I think the younger woman from Silent Witness, Emelia Fox? 

Story combines family history, politics, and international intrigue, with an ending you have to get to. 

Not sure if I will get into the audio habit. Would work well if driving long distances. Otherwise, as with radio, sometimes my attention wanders when listening, and that's not good, especially for a mystery. 

The THIRTY-NINE STEPS

 John Buchan. The THIRTY-NINE STEPS. Penguin, 1915.

Found a slim paperback of this thriller at the Rotary Book Sale, outdoors, a couple of weeks ago. Have never seen the films. Enjoyed the action-packed adventure, from London to Scotland to Kent along the Thames. First person voice of Richard Hannay. With commentary about spying, and political unrest in "the Balkans" and German subterfuge leading to the Great War. 

Checked out too info about John Buchan as I knew he had been Governor General of Canada. That Tweedsmuir Park is named for him. That he was Scots, had written several novels, after a career that took him to Africa and the Boer War. Was PATH OF A KING his, that we read in high school? I am surprised to learn that he had shepherded Canada through the abdication crisis, and the year George VI actually became the "King of Canada". That he died while in office, after a head injury caused by a fall after a stroke. A state funeral in Canada, February, 1940. 

I cannot find the exact cover image on my Penguin Classics copy but I like these two. Both show Hannay hiding out in the hills of Scotland, and the importance of train travel and airplane surveillance to the plot. Who knew? 1915. 

CANNERY ROW

 John Steinbeck. CANNERY ROW. Bantam, 1945. 

Beautiful, lyrical, down-and-outers in Monterey. I can see the outline of Cat and the cat house. Lee Chong, and the boys in the Palace Flophouse. 

This book documents the life of homeless people in California probably during the Depression. Some live inside abandoned sewer pipes. Some squat in an empty building. Some accept employment if it is available while others seem to scavenge for just enough work to keep them in the necessities. The stronger characters, like Doc who runs a live specimen supply service, and Lee who runs a store, help others out without seeming to enable dependence. 

Each time I read or re-read Steinbeck, I am impressed by how much I enjoy his keen-eyed lyrical prose. 

THE BREAK

 Katerena Vermette. The Break. Anansi, 2016.

Re-reading this book for the U of M book club. Like it even more now that I look more closely. The ghost of Raine leading off, then switching to Kookum for the last section. The family with similar looks, habits, experiences. The absent fathers. The gangs. The Metis cop. The break in the case, when we break free of assumptions. 

 

SMALL GAME HUNTING AT THE LOCAL COWARD GUN CLUB

Megan Gail Coles. SMALL GAME HUNTING AT THE LOCAL COWARD GUN CLUB. Anansi, 2019.

I heard about this novel through Canada Reads. Because people said the style was interesting, and then I saw a copy at my favourite secondhand book store, and bought it. Could not put it down.

Stylistically, I agree. A tour de force. Set in St. John's, Newfoundland, in the weeks between Christmas and Valentine's Day. In other words, winter. Around The Hazel, a restaurant, around which every character hovers. The novel has three sections, Prep, Lunch, Dinner. There are no chapters, only scenes. Each character narrates scenes from his or her POV, sweeping in and out of past and present. Olive, sleeping in the doorway, bumming smokes. Iris, the hostess, having an affair with John, the chef. George, his wife and part owner of the cafe, with her father, Big George. Omi, Ben, & Damian work there. Major David, the mayor, Amanda, an actress, her twin brother Calv, and his old friend Rog eat there. A few other characters are alluded to but never seen-Sarah, a former employee; Susie & Donna, Calv's mother and girlfriend.Tom, Damian's ex. Olive's father and nan. Iris's father and mother. One character, Calv, has a thick NFLD accent. 

You learn way more than you want to know about what goes on the behind the scenes in a restaurant, and in relationships. Incredibly written. As I said, a tour de force. The last scene unforgettably vivid. 

SECRET CUPID

Ruth C. Robbins. SECRET CUPID: Love at the Stationary Store. SP, 2019.

A fast lighter than Harlequin read. Sad young widow feels alone and rejected. Goes to a mixer. Meets 2 men. Problems ensue. I like the way the mystery is tied into the stationary store setting. 

I know I'm guilty of the same thing but it makes me sad to see women with no emotional life except longing for a man. And all the small town people whose lives peaked in high school. Sad. 

This slim volume suffers from many pitfalls of self-publishing. Tips: number your pages; choose fonts that are readable size, and line-spacing that is reader-friendly; ask someone who is good at it to copy edit. The bonus chapter made no sense, unless a reader said that you have to tie up all the loose ends, and make everyone happy in the end? 

CALL ME RUSSELL

Russell Peters, with Clayton Peters & Dannis Koromilas. CALL ME RUSSELL. Doubleday, 2010. 

An entertaining memoir of Brampton ON - raised comedian. Family ties, an Anglo-Indian family, the brothers born one in India & one in Canada. Bullied at School. ADD and directionless. The heroic climb from open-mic nights to sold out arenas. Generous with his gratitude. Sharing a bit more than I care to know. Especially the bits about counting sleeps. It seems his ideal woman is a porn star. Shopping. Labels. Being star-struck. An eternal boy in this book, published ten years ago before either of his children were born. What I learned of the life of a touring comic would not make me want to try that career. But you have to admire the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. 

A BROKEN BOWL

Patrick Friesen. A BROKEN BOWL. Brick, 1997.

Poetry. Always wonderful. 

BRAIDING SWEETGRASS

Robin Wall Kimmerer. BRAIDING SWEETGRASS: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed, 2013.

I've heard about this book for years, owned if for more than a year, and finally, with the lockdown, had the opportunity to give it the time and attention it deserves. It is one of those books you dole out to yourself is digestible doses, in order to make it last as long as you possibly can. A book you never want to finish, because then you will have to leave the beautiful plants, and their teachings and teacher. 

THE COLD HEARTH

Garth Pettersen. The COLD HEARTH: #3 in The Atheling Chronicles. Tirgearr, 2020. 

Finally finished reading The Cold Hearth, after several pandemic weeks of being unable to read or to concentrate on anything.

Found myself both rushing to finish and avoiding the final chapters, so fearful was I that the book’s title foreshadowed tragedy. Would it, like a Shakespearean play, end in a wedding or in a funeral?

How do we begin to imagine human communities of more than a millennia ago, with different tribes and different languages, and even different landmasses (Norway, Normandy, and different parts of England). Politics, gender differences, battles and conquests, daily rituals of eating and sleeping: what would be the same and what would be different from us today? This story stresses our desires to build a home, to find a compatible partner, to accept or decline an inheritance, to take our pleasures of the senses and the natural environment, to defend ourselves from those who want what we have. Immersed in the reading, I could even imagine myself riding a horse, another thing that will never happen in the real world.

PS: All three covers in this series are gorgeous. 

PPS: The writer is a friend, and an inspiration. jmb

BELONGING

Toko-pa Turner. BELONGING: Remembering Ourselves Home. Her Own Room Press, 2017.

Self-help focusing on grief, ritual, nature, community, and dreamwork with Sufi and Jungian principles. Personally, I found the dreamwork the most interesting. The style of writing seems a bit overwrought to me, with too many words. But very positive and encouraging. From a woman born in the UK, with Polish grandparents, raised in a Sufi community in Montreal, and now residing locally, on one of the gulf islands between the mainland and Vancouver Island. 

UP GHOST RIVER

Edmund Metatawabin. UP GHOST RIVER: A Chief's Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History. Vintage, 2015.

Great story of attempting to survive and recover from the effects of the residential school system. 

IN THE SLENDER MARGIN

Eve Joseph. IN THE SLENDER MARGIN: THE INTIMATE STRANGENESS OF DEATH AND DYING. Harper Collins, 2014. 

TALKING TO STRANGERS

Malcolm Gladwell. TALKING TO STRANGERS.

NINETEEN MINUTES

Jodi Picoult. NINETEEN MINUTES. Hawthorne Book Club for April, 2020.

THE DARK HORSE

Craig Johnson. The DARK HORSE. Viking, 2009.

#5 in the Sheriff Walt Longmire series.
This is a great story and the writing is mind-blowing. One main character is a horse. 

MORIARTY

Anthony Horowitz. MORIARTY. Harper, 2014.

Hawthorne Book Club selection for March, 2020.

THE REMORSEFUL DAY

Colin Dexter. THE REMORSEFUL DAY. Pan, 2000 (1999)

This if the first Morse book I have ever seen although I see the writer's name several times a week on the Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour re-runs on Knowledge Network. This is the last, the one where Morse dies. I am surprised at how exactly the television presentation matches the book. I remembered the plot but enjoyed the details of Morse's "thinking" and the plods investigating and checking alibis. I forgot the twist at the end. 

The use of language is guaranteed to make readers as annoyed as Morse made Lewis. Showing off, feeling superior, while maintaining a love of words, word origins, and puzzles until the end. 

WHAT THE SOUL DOESN'T WANT

Lorna Crozier. WHAT THE SOUL DOESN'T WANT. Freehand, 2017.

BY GRAND CENTRAL STATION

Elizabeth Smart. BY GRAND CENTRAL STATION I SAT DOWN AND WEPT. Paladin, 1991 (originally 1945). 

I re-read this book along with Terese Marie Mailhot's HEART BERRIES as I sensed similarities between the two "memoirs" separated by 75 years and several cultures. Although Smart's story is presented as a novel, it too deals with obsession, sexual obsessions which result in several children. And with a young woman working at "finding herself" in environments, especially home environments, which are not necessarily helpful or supportive. In both cases the female protagonists could be perceived by outsiders as "rebellious" although Mailhot's speaks more about victimization while Smart seems determined to insist upon her right to choose, even if she is choosing a "cad".  

Smart's novel seems easier to read simply because all the images and allusions are from the English or Western canon. Mailhot abandons any linear telling. She does help us by explaining some of the founding myths of her culture, the Heart Berry story. Unfortunately she has the challenge of trying to escape the cultural stereotypes while living them and/or being immersed in them--chaotic home life where substance and sexual abuse hover, chaotic personal life which begins by seeing "hooking up" as the sole means of escape available. Mailhot has the added challenge of trying to write about mental illness literally from the inside. 

THE LAKE HOUSE

Kate Morton. THE LAKE HOUSE. Washington Square, 2015.

Hawthorne Book Club selection for February, 2020. A great puzzle story, with dual (or several) time settings, and too many POVs to count. 

Some hints about the meaning of coincidence in our lives and in plots. 

Sadie Sparrow is a London cop, taking a leave after getting a bit too involved in the disappearance of a young mother. Visiting her grandfather in Cornwall, she uncovers a 70-year-old cold case, a missing child from a now-abandoned estate.

Update: February 14, 2020

The Lake House by Kate Morton

Susan: was travelling

Mike: was unable to attend

Garth: “I really couldn't get into that book, so I'll miss this meeting. Maybe next time. Cheers.”

Lois: “I have been under the weather and am not up to discussing The Lake House.  I did finish it but did not enjoy it.  It was too long and I did not relate to any of the characters.  The plot was very clever, maybe too much so for me.”

Ken: “I didn't dislike this book. I gave it only 6.5 though as it went on far too long—well the book didn't but the author did. She described Everything in detail. At the dilapidated house that was ready to fall down, she wondered if anyone was home. The place could have more ghosts than anything but when she stands on a planter and peers in the window all she does is describe the bloody vase. Really!

“There were many tangled webs of plots galore and it did come together but it almost seemed too neat to be true. And by the time I got there I didn't much care how it ended as long as it did.

“The writing was mediocre. I don't think an excellent writer would say: A fallen log came at her from nowhere ... Adrenaline spread beneath her skin like hot syrup. 

“Kate Morton appears to be in love with her own voice and will go to great lengths to show it. (pun intended) She said many things more than once as if she thought the reader didn't get it the first time.  Maybe I should take another fourteen pages and explain it again—for the slower ones.”

Pam: “I did enjoy reading Kate Morton's The Lake House. I had heard of this author but had not read any of her books as of yet. Her writing style reminds me of a flowing river which picks up and transports various bits of things along the way. I'd be reading along in the book and then stop all of a sudden because of some minute yet vitally significant detail subtly appearing within a paragraph. Very neat technique! I think the author's character development is absolutely key to the advancement of plot and action, and it is this aspect which engages the reader and continually precipitates a careful reading of the text.

“The power and place of nature is a strong theme throughout the book, as indicated as early as page 2: ‘Her father had told her once that generations had walked these woods and been buried deep beneath      the heavy earth. It made him glad, she knew, to think of it that way. He found comfort in the continuity of nature, believing that the stability of the long past had the power to alleviate present trouble.’

“Personally I connect with nature themes and I am attuned to taking note of such, seems to be, in whatever I may be doing.

“I look forward to the next reading selection and meeting all at the Hawthorne Book Club.”

Elsie: “I had a hard time getting into the book until the main action started. I think Morton should have pared down the text a bit to keep it moving. Once all the characters had clear functions in the plot, the story was more engaging, but the prose needed to be tightened up a bit; I found myself skimming just to keep myself connected with the story. I like Pam’s “flowing river” analogy, though; that’s a great description of how all the story elements were redistributed among the various perspectives presented until the truth of the “kidnapping” was revealed. I liked the many references to nature and earth elements; they seemed to ground the house and the characters and their secrets to a common source. So many of the pivotal plot elements depended on them.  I’d try another of Morton’s books, if just to find out if the writing was consistent.”

Joan: I would have abandoned this book in the first chapters, the overwrought teenage girl POV, if it had not been a book club selection. The Cornwall and London settings did appeal to me. And the idea of a haunted or grieving house. The plot did hook me once the cold case came into it—the unsolved disappearance of a child. And I liked the linked themes of mother/child relationships, over 5 generations. And the character-based “family secrets” which drive the plot, especially the “giving up a child” and the PTSD sub-plots. However, I agree totally with Lois—that it was too long and too clever for its own good. It reminded me of writing exercises on changing POV. I questioned the use of coincidence in resolving the plot (Bertie) but at the same time I believe that coincidence does often play a role in real life. I was hoping people might have examples to share, of coincidences, of family secrets.

Most of all I missed seeing everyone here to debate The Lake House. Next month. I’ll let you know …

I did discover that Kate Morton, born 1976 , is Australian, moved to England for post-secondary, did her MA on Thomas Hardy, is married with 3 sons, and this is her fifth New York Times best seller. Sigh.

EDINBURGH

Colin Baxter. Photographs of EDINBURGH. 2008.

Bought this at a thrift store on January 31. I have other books about Scotland by this artist. This one makes me so long for another Rebus novel, his stomping ground. 

A BETTER MAN

Louise Penny. A Better Man. Minotaur, 2019.

The latest in the Armand Gamache detective series set in Three Pines, PQ. So many possibilities. Mistakes will be made. Media will mock. Women will continue to die at the hands of abusers. Jean-Guy and family fly off to Paris. 

THE TALE TELLER

Anne Hillerman. The Tale Teller. HarperCollins, 2019.

Interesting installment in the Navajo detective series, this one with Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito investigating artifacts missing from a museum donation. By the daughter of the series originator.