Some were naked and carrying their clothes; others half-naked, or more or less dressed, in school uniforms, grey, blue, fawn, jacketed, or jerseyed. There were badges, mottoes even, stripes of color in stockings and pullovers. Their heads clustered above the trunks in the green shade; heads brown, fair, black, chestnut, sandy, mouse-colored, heads muttering, whispering, heads full of eyes that watched Ralph and speculated. Something was being done. – from Lord of the Flies, page 13 -

A plane crashes on a deserted island, leaving in its wake children – the only survivors. These children are British school boys, civilized kids with manners and well-versed in respect for authority. There are very small children – the “littluns” who don’t seem to understand the enormity of what has happened. And there are older kids, boys who quickly recognize the need for a leader, a chief of sorts. A new society is forming, and before long survival demands a return to one’s baser instincts.

Lord of the Flies is a classic. Penned in 1954 by Nobel Laureate William Golding, it is a novel which asks deep moral questions and examines what happens when the civilized world is stripped away and individuals are left to create their own society.

Two main characters emerge early on. Ralph is a sandy-haired boy who is quickly chosen to be the “chief” and who focuses on building shelter and maintaining a fire to attract rescue. He holds “assemblies,” where participants are called to participate with a blow from a conch and are designed to maintain order. Jack is a charismatic boy, the leader of a choir of boys, who quickly establishes himself as the hunter, tracking down the wild pigs on the island with a sharpened stick as a spear. Before long, Jack and Ralph are in a competition for leadership with Ralph being the voice of reason, and Jack appealing to the more savage aspects of the boys’ personalities.

Another character, Piggy, emerges as the philosopher and the scapegoat. Piggy is obese, bespectacled, afflicted with asthma, and a bit of a know-it-all. Despite his wisdom (or maybe because of it), he is bullied.

There had grown up tacitly among the biguns the opinion that Piggy was an outsider, not only by accent, which did not matter, but by fat, and ass-mar, and specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor. – from Lord of the Flies, page 60 -

There is also a fourth character, Simon, who plays an important role in the novel. Simon is a loner, but he is also reasonable and practical and gifted with an insight which the others lack. When talk of a beast begins, it is Simon who refuses to acknowledge a physical beast and instead recognizes that the beast is the fear within them.

These four characters – Jack, Ralph, Simon and Piggy – take center stage in a novel about the disintegration of morals and the descent into savagery.

I first read this novel in high school…and my memory of it is inexact. Of course, I remembered Piggy for his victimization, but in terms of theme, my memory was lacking. During this re-read, the story returned to me and I found it so much more compelling from my adult point of view. Classic literature is defined as something which stands the test of time…and there is no doubt that The Lord of the Flies meets that definition with its memorable characters, shocking twists of plot and ruminations on what it means to be human. Written in the 1950s, it could easily have been penned today.

Lord of the Flies is a novel which will generate great discussion in book groups and in the classroom. It is not an “enjoyable” read, and yet it is an engaging one. There is a good deal of violence in this slim book and I found myself anxious as the plot unfurls and it becomes obvious that things are going very, very wrong.

This is a classic, dysptopian-type novel about good vs. evil, but it also forces the reader to look within and to examine his or her role as part of a larger society.

Highly recommended.

• Quality of Writing:
• Characters:
• Plot:

Overall Rating:

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this book.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

Shop Indie Bookstores

If you stretch a spring long enough, far enough, the metal will fail and the spring will snap. The same with a human body. The same with a human heart. The same, even, with a country. – from Running the Rift, page 231 -

There are many horrific events in the historical record. The Rwandan Genocide which occurred in 1994 and resulted in the deaths of more than 800,000 people (or close to 20% of the country’s population) is, perhaps, one of the most tragic. The violence took place over a 100 day period, although there were small outbreaks of violence in the years leading up to the tragedy – episodes which pointed to a build up of rage and misunderstanding between two ethnic groups: the Hutu and the Tutsi. The long-standing tension between these two groups escalated in part due to agitation by political and military leaders. The slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians occurred while the rest of the world looked on and did nothing.

It is this heartbreaking episode of genocide which informs Naomi Benaron’s affecting novel Running the Rift. Benaron opens her story in 1984, ten years before the tragedy, with a young Tutsi boy named Jean Patrick and his family. Jean Patrick loves to run and he has dreams of going on to college despite the difficulty which the Tutsi people face in attending secondary schools. As the chapters unfurl, the years slip past and Jean Patrick comes of age. He is a dreamer, an extraordinary athlete, and a young man with a generous heart. He loves his tight-knit family and clings to the memory of his father. Eventually he finds himself training to become an Olympic runner. He falls in love with a beautiful Hutu woman named Bea who is smart, fiery, and on the path to becoming an activist on the heels of her journalist father. But behind the hope which Jean Patrick holds in his heart, is an uncertain future. There are ominous signs that all is not right in Rwanda. There is the rumble of civil war. There is the hatred toward the Tutsi people being fanned by an outspoken Hutu militaristic government. And, eventually, the day will come when everything Jean Patrick holds dear, including his life, will become threatened.

Running the Rift is a heartbreaking, character-driven novel about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable horror and loss. Benaron builds her story slowly, taking time to develop the characters and unveil their simple lives against the backdrop of the stunning Rwandan countryside. Jean Patrick lives and breathes on the page, as does his counterpart, Bea. The reader begins to care deeply about these characters and worry for them seeps in as the novel progresses.

I turned the final hundred pages of Running the Rift with my heart in my throat and tears in my eyes because at its heart, this book is about individuals. It is not about an historical event. It is about the people, the families, the individual lives which were destroyed or forever changed during those fateful days in 1994. It is unimaginable. It is horrifying.

I remember when the Rwandan Genocide happened. I was living in California and I remember the news footage of people laying slaughtered in the streets. I remember asking myself how this could happen and why no one stopped it. What Benaron’s novel does so exquisitely is to get beneath the headlines and examine the daily lives of the people living in Rwanda in the years leading up to the tragedy. She uncovers the tensions and the complexities of a country in flux and how misunderstandings between ethnic groups can grow into something so hate-filled that neighbors and friends can turn on each other.

Benaron explores themes of forgiveness and redemption in her novel which I found hopeful. The author has worked with Rwandan genocide survivors and visited Rwanda where she has an adopted son, so her insight into the aftermath of the genocide feels authentic.

Running the Rift won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction and it is well deserving of this literary award which recognizes “fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships.” This is a novel which is sublimely crafted and highly recommended.

• Quality of Writing:
• Characters:
• Plot:

Overall Rating:

FTC Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher as part of BOOK CLUB. Follow the discussion here.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

Shop Indie Bookstores

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King day and I thought it would be appropriate to talk about some of the best books I have read about the African-American experience. First, take a few minutes to listen, once again, to the historic “I Have A Dream” speech:

Here are the novels I recommend which revolve around African-American history:

Sweetsmoke by David Fuller

Sweetsmoke is a rich atmospheric novel of the South during the Civil War. Entwined in the story are the frequent injustices and crimes against enslaved blacks including beatings, hobblings and the theft of children who are torn from their mothers’ breasts to be sold into slavery. Fuller writes gripping dialogue and offers the reader characters who are complex and memorable. The reader’s heart will ache for Marriah, grow cold toward Ellen, and pound with fear for Cassius as the pages to this novel seem to turn themselves.

(Read my full review)

Someone Knows My Name (aka The Book of Negroes) by Lawrence Hill

Hill gives a voice to the thousands of blacks who were enslaved in the latter part of the eighteenth century and in this way, the novel becomes more than just an historical document, but instead becomes a personal story of one woman’s courage and determination. Hill’s novel is really a family saga immersed in an historical time period.

(Read my full review)

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Lee doesn’t restrict herself to merely telling a story. She includes astounding insight into the roots of racism and the idea that one man’s courage to stand up against inequality may be all that’s needed to begin to shatter the beliefs that sustain hatred.

(Read my full review)

The Long Song by Andrea Levy

The Long Song is a brilliant novel narrated by an unforgettable character. July is, perhaps, one of the most memorable female voices I have read in a long, long time. Bittersweet, funny, often devastating…this is a novel which drew me in immediately and held me in its grip to the final page. Andrea Levy writes with an honesty and insight into the human condition that takes one’s breath away.

(Read my full review)

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The year is 1962. The place is Jackson, Mississippi. The issue is civil rights. Kathryn Stockett’s best selling debut novel, The Help, is narrated in the unforgettable voices of three women caught up in history and courageous enough to believe things can change simply by sharing their stories.

(Read my full review)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

When Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1851, it outraged people in the American South and was criticized by slavery supporters. The novel was declared ‘utterly false’ by Southern novelist William Gilmore; others referred to it as criminal and slanderous. A bookseller in Mobile, Alabama was driven from town for selling the novel and Stowe received threatening letters, including a package containing a slave’s severed ear.

(Read my full review)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.

So begins The Color Purple, a novel set in the deep south and told in the voice of a young black girl named Celie. Alice Walker brings Celie to life through her letters to God. Celie’s words tell of unspeakable horrors – her rape at the hands of her stepfather, her marriage to an older man who beats her, the loss of almost everyone dear to her. But, then her husband’s lover arrives and teaches Celie what it means to be courageous in the face of pain, and most importantly what it means to love and be loved.

The Color Purple is a splendid novel full of pain and joy, tears and laughter, love and hate. It is an American Classic that should be mandatory reading for all of us.

The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman

Although a large part of the novel is dedicated to the Holocaust, the book also examines the Civil Rights movement and racism within the United States, and again looks at the individual stories which made up the larger historical picture.

(Read my full review)

Are there any books you would add to this list?

Ghandi, Harlem, Christ, Jews in Europe, a block man living over there on Broadway in the Union Theological Seminary in 1930: you never know the connections between things, people, places, ideas. But there are connections. You never know where you’ll find them. Most people don’t know where to find them or even that there’s any point to finding them. Who even looks? Who’s got time to look? Whose job is it to look? Ours. Historians. It’s part of our job.  – from The Street Sweeper -

History can provide comfort in difficult or even turbulent and traumatic times. It shows us what our species has been through before and that we survived. It can help to know we’ve made it through more than one dark age. And history is vitally important because perhaps as much as, if not more than biology, the past owns us and however much we think we can, we cannot escape it. If you only knew how close you are to people who seem so far from you…it would astonish you. – from The Street Sweeper -

Lamont Williams is an African-American ex-con, wrongly convicted and recently released to a probationary work experience at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Lamont lives with his grandmother and dreams of finding his daughter – a young girl who is now eight or nine years old and who has been lost to him since he was imprisoned. It is while Lamont is working as a janitor at the hospital when he unexpectedly meets and ultimately befriends a Jewish cancer patient named Henryk Mandelbrot. Henryk has a story to tell about the years he spent in Auschwitz and he chooses Lamont as the person to care for this story. He makes Lamont promise to remember.

Adam Zignelik is a history professor at Columbia University. Unable to produce research to achieve tenure, he has put his career at risk. Adam is floundering professionally and personally. He lives in the shadow of his famous father – a Jewish man who worked in the Civil Rights movement and met the great Justice Thurgood Marshall.

These two men – Adam and Lamont – seem worlds apart, and yet they are closer to each other than they know. As their stories develop on parallel narrative paths, their lives begin to merge in the most unexpected of ways.

The Street Sweeper is a sprawling, beautiful work of historical fiction which takes the reader from twenty-first-century New York to the simmering days of the Civil Rights Movement to the horrifying years of Hitler’s reign in Europe. Adam’s search for himself takes him to Chicago where he discovers the work of a little known psychologist who was born as a Polish Jew but ended up in the United States just before the Holocaust brought terror to Poland. Lamont wishes only to make it through the six months of his probationary period so he can begin looking for his young daughter. How do the lives of a black ex-con and a Jewish history professor fit together? That is, in large part, the story arc of this novel. The underlying themes of racism, identity, and antisemitism weave throughout the book. But what elevates it is perhaps the idea that we are all connected as human beings despite our differences in race, religion, and beliefs.

The Street Sweeper starts out slowly. Perlman takes his time developing the main characters and then moves back and forth in time to show the reader their motivations, dreams, and failures. He introduces a large cast of secondary characters. He echos certain phrases, circles back and moves ahead. It is like drifting on the tide, being carried along through a maze of seemingly unconnected story lines. And then, at around the two hundred page mark, Perlman hits his stride and the narrative ratchets up. Finally, the reader begins to get a glimpse of what is to come.

Perlman spares the reader nothing – not the violence of racial hatred, not the shattered lives of Jews sent to death camps, not the disappointments, pain, and terror of his varied characters. At times the story feels almost too agonizing to read. And then, just when I began to wonder where the hope might be, Perlman cracks open a door which lets in the light.

Perlman’s latest novel took him years to write and it is easy to see why. There is (obviously) a huge amount of research which went into the crafting of this book which emphasizes the importance of not only our collective history, but our personal history as well. How important is it to record history? How important is it to remember individual lives within the greater scope of what has unfolded in the past? Scholars of the Holocaust know that the effort to record what was happening was a big part of the Jewish resistance effort during that time in history. The Street Sweeper includes actual historical characters and organizations like Oyneg Shabbos which was a group of  historians, writers, rabbis and social workers who chronicled life in the Warsaw ghetto beginning in 1939 and ending in 1943. Fictional characters like Henryk Mandelbrot represent the thousands of individuals whose stories not only need telling, but also need remembering. Although a large part of the novel is dedicated to the Holocaust, the book also examines the Civil Rights movement and racism within the United States, and again looks at the individual stories which made up the larger historical picture.

Elliot Perlman is a talented author. He is able to weave together the lives of dozens of characters and seemingly disparate times in our historical record while fully engaging his reader. I turned the final page of this book and felt tremendously moved by what I had read. The Street Sweeper is a powerful work of fiction. It is not easy. It takes some patience early on. But in the end, I found it hard to put it aside.

Readers who love historical fiction and want to be wowed by an author who is in full command of his story, would be well-served to pick up a copy of The Street Sweeper.

• Quality of Writing:
• Characters:
• Plot:

Overall Rating:

Want to win a copy of this book? Visit The Chunkster Challenge later this month to see how you can enter the giveaway.

FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review on my blog.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

Shop Indie Bookstores

In 2011 my reading led me on a trek with a tiger, brought me to the Australian countryside during WWII, took me to Mauritius, brought me to a small town where a whale took center stage, allowed me inside the walls of a New England college, and introduced me to memorable characters such as Esch, Sophie and Emma, the youngest child of a dysfunctional family, and three sisters whose lives involved a lot of Shakespeare. I learned about the connection between people and animals, read letters by a favorite author, saw a Japanese POW camp during WWII, and cried when families struggled. I was transported by beautiful prose, moved by profound observations, devastated by grief, and enraptured by descriptions of place. The best literature sticks with the reader, makes them laugh and cry, and elevates their lives. I feel really lucky that I had so many of these kinds of books in my reading stacks this year.

Because of the volume of wonderful books I read in 2011, I decided to follow the lead of the literary awards and create a long list, a short list and a winner for the best books I read this year.

So, drum roll please, here are the books that touched me the most in 2011.  I have evaluated nonfiction and fiction separately; short and long listed books are in no particular order.

The Short List for Nonfiction

Steinbeck: A Life in Letters edited by Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten – Penguin (April 1989) / ISBN 978-0140042887 / 928 pages

Steinbeck: A Life in Letters should be mandatory reading for Steinbeck fans or for those scholars who wish to learn more about the inner workings of a great author. In this day and age of computers, cell phones, and digital communication – handwritten letters are becoming a thing of the past. Reading this book made me realize how sad it is that we are losing the art of letter writing. There is something fantastic and confidential about reading someone’s letters – often people reveal more of themselves in a letter than they would ever verbalize in conversation. I think this was certainly the case with John Steinbeck. (read my full review)

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand  – Random House  (November 2010) / ISBN – 978-1400064168 /496 pages

Hillenbrand is a gifted author, one who carefully uncovers the essence of what it means to be human in the face of cruelty, degradation, and hopelessness. Although graphic at times, I could not stop reading this amazing book. (read my full review)

Being With Animals by Barbara J. King – Harmony/Crown (January 2010) / ISBN 0385523637 / 272 pages

Barbara King knowledgeably provides the reader with a plethora of well-researched information that helps define not only why animals are so important to humans, but how that relationship has evolved across time and cultures. Being with Animals narrows the gap between humans and animals, and reminds us of what we share vs. what separates us. (read my full review)

The BEST Nonfiction Book of 2011

The Boy in the Moon by Ian Brown – St. Martin’s Press (April 2011) / ISBN 978-0312671839 / 304 pages

Brown is nothing if not brutally honest in his memoir. He does not pretend that he is a saint, or that his love for his child is not filled with ambivalence. He lays it all out and bares his emotions on the page. As difficult as his story is to read, I still found myself laughing at times…because Brown has discovered something that many people have not – that humor can elevate us above the worst situations and make our most difficult challenges bearable.

This was a profoundly moving memoir and was easily the best piece of nonfiction I read all year (read my full review).

The Long List for Fiction

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown – Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam (January 2011) / ISBN 978-0399157226 / 336 pages

Eleanor Brown is a talented storyteller who has crafted a novel that will resonate with anyone who has had a sister. But, you do not need to have shared your life with sisters to appreciate the skill of Brown’s writing. Her work is honest, heartfelt, funny, and full of the truths which make us human. (read my full review)

Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich – Harper Collins (February 2010) / ISBN 978-0061536090 / 272 pages

Shadow Tag is not an enjoyable read – it made my mouth grow dry and my heart ache. There is an element of  inevitability which informs the story. How can things possibly be fixed between these two characters? How can the children ultimately be saved from the wreck of their family? (read my full review)

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides – Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 2011) / ISBN 978-0374203054 / 416 pages

The Marriage Plot is all about the journey of its characters. Filled with humor, sadness, and an honest look at growing to adulthood during the 1980s, the novel drew me in completely. (read my full review)

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah (translated by Geoffrey Strachan) – Graywolf Press (February 2011) / ISBN 978-1555975753 / 208 pages

This book demonstrates the redemptive value of stories, how telling a story can somehow bring healing to our broken hearts. Nathacha Appanah explores grief, loss, loneliness, domestic violence, and the loss of childhood innocence. Her language is evocative and lyrical, heartbreaking and joyous. (read my full review)

The Marriage Artist by Andrew Winer – Henry Holt and Co. (October 2010) / ISBN 0805091785 / 384 pages

What Andrew Winer does with his words is paint a portrait of his characters’ lives against the backdrop of history. And yet, although history is certainly important in the novel, it does not define it. Winer’s gift is his ability to demonstrate the timeless nature of our ruminations about life, death and faith. (read my full review)

Men in the Making by Bruce Machart (short story collection) – Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (October 2011) / ISBN 978-0156034449 / 208 pages

Readers will find themselves pulled into the lives of the characters, feeling their sadness, their anger, their regret…they will wish for their redemption and their healing. Highly recommended for those who enjoy the art of the short story and who love beautiful writing which evokes the deepest of emotions. (read my full review)

Little America by Diane Simmons (short story collection) – Ohio State University Press (May 2011) / ISBN 978-0814251782 / 136 pages

And it is this stubborn persistence, this focused effort to make something of one’s life, to be better, or happier, or to find self-understanding which runs throughout all the stories in Simmons’s beautifully wrought book. (read my full review)

The Short List for Fiction

The Paperbark Shoe by Goldie Goldbloom – Picador (March 2011) / ISBN 978-0312674502 / 384 pages

This was Goldie Goldbloom’s first novel – and it was breathtaking. The language was vivid and original, and the characters were unforgettable.

Many readers will wonder where the beauty is in this novel among the scarred and damaged characters, and the dry and desolate countryside, but I think those most observant will discover that the beauty lies in how the story is told – its honesty and its acute examination of what it means to be different in a society where uniqueness is often perceived as negative. (read my full review)

Galore by Michael Crummey – Other Press; Reprint edition (March 2011) / ISBN 978-1590514344 / 352 pages

Crummey hit it out of the park with this delightful and quirky family saga set in Newfoundland during the latter part of the 18th century. Rich and sprawling, Galore was nominated for several literary awards.

Crummey’s skill at character development is evident from the beginning. Despite their oddness, his characters are believable, intriguing, and very real. So many of these characters were memorable. (read my full review)

You Are My Only by Beth Kephart – Egmont USA (October 2011) / ISBN 978-1606842720 / 256

Beth Kephart’s prose is stunningly beautiful, and this YA/Adult cross-over novel swept me away with its poetic language, lovingly developed characters and something difficult to define which made me want to re-read it as soon as I had turned the final page.

…a book that takes the reader into the darkness and then shows them a way to return to the light. Beautifully written and astonishing, this is a book which I highly recommend for readers of all ages. (read my full review)

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen – Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (March 2011) / ISBN 978-0812976885 / 352 pages

Wow – this novel stunned me. It left me sobbing, my heart shattered. And it was truly, one of the more unforgettable books I have ever read.

Anna Quindlen is an extraordinarily gifted writer who has given her readers a novel which is unforgettable. Poignant, beautifully rendered, achingly sad, but joyously hopeful…Every Last One is a book which left me emotionally drained. (read my full review)

We the Animals by Justin Torres – Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (August 2011) / ISBN 978-0547576725 / 144 pages

Sometimes the best gifts are those which come in small packages. Justin Torres has crafted a debut novel which packs a huge punch in less than 150 pages.

As the story unfurls, it becomes apparent that this is a novella about individual identity. How are we formed? Do our families define who we become? Can we tear away from our heritage and our upbringing and find our own unique place in the world? (read my full review)

The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht – Random House (March 2011) / ISBN 978-0385343831 / 352 pages

Tea Obreht’s debut novel won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction – and it is easy to see why. This was a beautifully wrought story which was sprawling and nearly dreamlike with an incredible description of place and fantastic characters.

This is a memorable novel, a magical novel, one that had me dreaming of tigers and snow capped mountains and a man who cannot die. (read my full review)

The BEST Fiction Book of 2011

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward – Bloomsbury USA (August 2011) / ISBN 978-1608195220 / 272 pages

I have been talking about this book for weeks now, so it should come as no surprise that my choice for the best book I read this year was Jesmyn Ward’s raw, amazing, and riveting novel Salvage the Bones. Ward captured the 2011 National Book Award for her efforts. Her ability to draw the reader into a world which is sad, brutal and nearly hopeless, speaks volumes about her talent.

Salvage the Bones is like nothing I have ever read before. I found it hard to tear myself away from these characters whose lives were so fragile and yet were defined by an inner strength which was both admirable and grim. (read my full review)

Have you read any of the books which made it onto my lists? What amazing books did YOU read in 2011?

We wanted more. We knocked the butt ends of our forks against the table, tapped our spoons against our empty bowls; we were hungry. We wanted more volume, more riots. We turned up the knob on the TV until our ears ached with the shouts of angry men. We wanted more music on the radio; we wanted beats; we wanted rock. We wanted muscles on our skinny arms. We had bird bones hollow and light, and we wanted more density, more weight. We were six snatching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more. – from We The Animals, page 1 -

Three young boys – brothers – grow up in a house of violence and passion. Their stomachs often ache with hunger. They throw their anger out into the world, then cling to each other while their parents fight and separate and come back together again.  Their father, Paps, is a man of Puerto Rican heritage who wants his boys to understand where they come from; while the brothers try to see themselves as part of their father, but different from him, too.

“This is your heritage,” he said, as if from this dance we could know about his own childhood, about the flavor and grit of tenement buildings in Spanish Harlem, and projects in Red Hook, and dance halls, and city parks, and about his own Paps, how he beat him, how he taught him to dance, as if we could hear Spanish in his movements, as if Puerto Rico was a man in a bathrobe, grabbing another beer from the fridge and raising it to drink, his head back, still dancing, still stepping and snapping perfectly in time. – from We The Animals, page 10 -

Ma fights depression and takes to her bed, forgetting to care for her children or pay attention to them. Locked in a cycle of abuse, she seems powerless to change the course of her life, much less the lives of her kids.

She stopped sleeping in her bed and took to the couch instead, or the floor, or sometimes she slept at the kitchen table, with her head in one arm and the other arm dangling down toward the linoleum, where little heaps of cigarette butts and empty packs and ash piled up around her. – from We The Animals, page 30 -

Narrated in the sensitive and observant voice of the youngest brother, We The Animals is a powerful and disquieting novella about family, love, poverty, domestic violence and the quest to find one’s way within the world. Justin Torres writes with compassion and uses poetic language to capture the day to day challenges that face his characters. Often dark and sad, the novella draws the reader into the bleak world of this family with its captivating prose.

During one poignant scene, the boys are being bathed by their father. As they splash and pretend to navigate “boats” through the shallow waters of their bath, the dark threat of violence is never far away.

After dinner he led us all to the bathtub, no bubbles, just six inches of gray water and our bare butts, our knees and elbows, and our three little dicks. Paps scrubbed us rough with a soapy washcloth. He dug his fingernails into our scalp as he washed our hair and warned us that if the shampoo got into our eyes, it was our own fault for squirming. We made moterboat voices, navigating bits of Styrofoam around toothpicks and plastic milk-cap islands, and we tried to be brave when he grabbed us; we tried not to flinch. – from We the Animals, page 44 -

It was moments like these where my heart felt like breaking for these children – for all children who find themselves in homes like this, desperate for the love of their parents, frightened by the violence they do not understand, growing up in a world where fear and poverty and addiction are a daily occurrence.

As the story unfurls, it becomes apparent that this is a novella about individual identity. How are we formed? Do our families define who we become? Can we tear away from our heritage and our upbringing and find our own unique place in the world?

I was completely engrossed in this book. I read it in less than a day, then set it aside and lived with the words for nearly a week before being able to sort out my feelings for it. This is not the kind of story that is enjoyable. It is difficult, sad, and heartbreaking. It is the kind of book which is hard to forget. I found myself waking up in the morning and thinking about the characters, my heart compressing with empathy for them. Any author who is able to touch a reader this deeply is gifted.

Readers who wish to be transported by original and lyrical prose and those who love literary fiction, will want to experience Justin Torres’ writing for themselves. Sharp, emotional, and darkly compelling, We the Animals is a brilliant first novel.

•  Quality of Writing:
• Characters:
• Plot:

Overall Rating: 

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this book.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

Shop Indie Bookstores

Love, she thought. What a tangle. And she danced a few steps at being alone in the quiet street. The branch of a tree reached over a wall above a lamp-post, its leaves still young and fresh, a brilliant theatrical green in the artificial light. Between the lamp-posts the sky reappeared, a deep purple-blue where the moon was suspended straight overhead, but rusty pink with London’s glow where it came down at the end of the street to outline the roofs. She need not go home. She could decide to walk all night, make for the river or Hampstead Heath, because she was not tired and her shoes were comfortable in spite of their heels.  – from An Island -

Diana Athill will celebrate her 94th birthday tomorrow (December 21). Athill retired at the age of 75 after fifty years in publishing, and then went on to write a series of memoirs, one of which (Somewhere Towards The End) won her the 2009 Costa Book Award. She has also written a novel and many short stories. She is one of the most iconic figures in publishing (her response to V.S. Naipaul’s ridiculous comment about women only writing “tosh” was brilliant). Athill’s sharp wit and keen observations inform her latest collection of short stories: Midsummer Night in the Workhouse.

The stories in this collection are connected thematically and revolve around women (mostly young women finding or losing love). In No Laughing Matter, a young woman experiences first love and faces the wrenching decision about whether or not she will lose her virginity. The Real Thing introduces the reader to a woman in her first year of University who is enthralled by her first kiss even though it lacks the passion she had expected.

I stood quite still while Toofat was kissing me – it didn’t take long – and I was doing a lot of things all at once: thinking ‘This is me, being kissed’; remembering Thomas Hardy; noticing the tree with the lights and the green grass outside the windows; listening to the music from the house; smelling the honeysuckle; thinking that I must fix every bit of it in my mind for ever. – from The Real Thing -

Love for the women in Athill’s stories is not always unencumbered – they consider cheating on their spouses, they have one night stands, they get drunk and dream of a life unattached to their husband. One woman has a week long affair and then is haunted by the possibilities for years afterwards as she plods through her predictable marriage. Another woman leaves her husband at a party and walks home alone and drunk – along the way, she appreciates the beauty of a wine glass and the moon in the sky and hopes to remember the feeling of being utterly alone in the world.

I must remember, I must remember how beautiful it is, because now I can see it. It is so still, and the grass has just been cut, and the leaves are being blown, they are just settling together, sometimes, on the air, and the wine glass is standing on the railing, and I am alone. I am me, under the moon, on a summer night, alone. – from An Island -

Perhaps my favorite of the collection is the title story, Midsummer Night in the Workhouse, where a writer finds herself at a luxurious retreat battling writer’s block and a charming author whose work is perhaps just ordinary. Cecilia reflects on the other writers at the retreat, and is distracted by Charles Opie, a man whose wife has divorced him because of an affair and who has enjoyed an element of fame associated with his writing. In this story, the sexual tension is played out against the backdrop of a woman’s struggle with her career, self-doubt, and the difficulty of finding inspiration within her life.

The horror in wait at Hetherston, nearest in her room but present everywhere, even after dinner when she talked with the others or pub-crawled with Philip, came from the knowledge of how closely her work connected with her own experience and dread that everything of significance in that experience might have been used up. – from Midsummer Night in the Workhouse -

Athill’s writing is fluid, simple, perceptive and sometimes funny. She is able to capture the internal conflict of her characters with ease, uncovering their insecurities, dreams, joy and despair. I thoroughly enjoyed this delightful collection of stories, slipping into the lives of women who could define a generation. There was a time when a woman was supposed to be proper, not take risks, focus on family instead of career, and be the dutiful wife. Athill’s prose reveals the hidden desires and adventurous spirits of woman who came of age in that era.

Readers who want to be transported by an author who has established herself as one of the best writers of the late twentieth century, will be well rewarded by picking up a copy of Diana Athill’s collection of short stories.

Highly recommended.

FTC Disclosure: The publisher provided me with this book for review on my blog.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

Shop Indie Bookstores

Readers to my blog will know by now that I loved Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, a book which won the 2011 National Book Award (read my review). This is not an easy book to read, but it was so incredibly written, so honest, and so powerful that I have continued to want to share it with other readers who love literary fiction.

When I saw that NPR was interviewing Ward about the novel, I was excited to listen to her speak. This interview gives terrific insight into Ward’s work on the book, and so I wanted to share it. A transcript of the interview may be found on NPR’s site here.

These are rough-hewn and heavy men, men with calluses thick as rawhide, men who aren’t afraid to keep something tender beneath their rib cages, and to expose it to the elements when occasion calls for it, no matter how it hurts.  – from the collection Men in the Making, page 139 -

Bruce Machart writes with a brutal and tender honesty about his characters in his first collection of short stories: Men in the Making. These stories are about men working in sawmills and on the backs of tractors, men who are fathers and husbands and grandfathers, men whose lives are not easy, men who have made huge mistakes and experienced aching regrets, men whose desires are raw and heartbreaking. A common thread of loss runs through most of Machart’s stories. He peels back the rough exterior of these mostly blue collar workers, and reveals the lost dreams, the hopes and the tragedies which fill them up.

The Last One Left in Arkansas opens with a tragedy – a young man has been killed in the debarker in a sawmill. Through this story within the story, Machart allows us into the world of a man, a worker at the sawmill, who has lost a son.

Here in this valley, clear through to March, when on nights like tonight I sometimes sit on the porch in my parka, sipping whiskey and shivering and trying to find just the right prayer for the son I lost eleven years back, or the courage to call the one who’s alive but living hundreds of miles away, often even the clouds turn lethargic, and they sit, and they stay. – from The Last One Left in Arkansas, page 14 -

As the story unwinds, the reader learns how this man has lost not only a son, but a wife and a family. Machart tenderly opens old wounds, exposes the heat of guilt and regret, and leaves us with a small light of hope at the end. What Machart does so well in this story (and all the other stories in his collection) is get beneath the hard exterior of his protagonist and show us not only his vulnerability, but who he really is.

Lose a plant and you learn to respect the elements, to prepare for them. There’s no one to blame but yourself. Lose a child and, for a while, the only thing that can keep you sane and above ground and alive enough to hate yourself is the burn-off of rage you ignite by laying blame somewhere, on something or someone else, so you can keep it from burrowing inside you and living where deep down you believe it belongs. – from The Last One Left in Arkansas, page 21 -

In The Only Good Thing I’ve Heard, Machart also examines the loss of a child – this time a child who is stillborn. The main character in this story is a man who works on a burn unit of a hospital. He is a caretaker, one who puts others’ pain before his own, and so as we learn about his wife’s torment, we almost forget about this man’s grief. And then, in eloquent and simple prose, Machart exposes it:

Now, on the phone, her voice was hushed and broken, and Raymond leaned hard into the receiver, wanting to be there, to feel her breath swirling inside his ear. “You’re okay,” he said, and he knew, for the first time in days, that if she wasn’t, she would be.

“And you, honey,” she said. “How are you?” – from The Only Good Thing I’ve Heard, page 108 -

It is these moments in Machart’s prose where I found myself pausing, felt my heart restricting, because the writing in this collection is gorgeous. It is evocative and honest, and takes the reader right there, into the heart of what it means to be human.

I read Machart’s first novel, The Wake of Forgiveness, last year (read my review) and loved the richness of his prose, the complexity of his characters, and his skill at demonstrating the relationship between father and son. That ability is evident in Machart’s short story collection as well – especially in We Don’t Talk That Way in Texas, a story about a nine year old boy who leaves his home in Oklahoma one summer to visit his grandfather in Texas. The boy has never known his father who died in the war, and this is the first time he has met his grandfather who is a rough man, a farmer, and a Texan. The visit, filled with a boy’s first taste of beer, a tractor driving lesson and a hunting trip with an unexpected ending…will reveal a father and his relationship with his father.

There always were, in Grandpa’s way of speaking, lessons to be learned about the way Texans did things, or didn’t do them, and to me, they began that summer to sound like his way of talking about my father without speaking of him directly. – from We Don’t Talk That Way in Texas, page 75 -

All the ten stories in Men in the Making are atmospheric, calling up the landscape and the working people of places like Texas and Arkansas. Machart has a firm grasp of the world in which his characters live.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I loved this collection as I knew I would. Readers will find themselves pulled into the lives of the characters, feeling their sadness, their anger, their regret…they will wish for their redemption and their healing. Highly recommended for those who enjoy the art of the short story and who love beautiful writing which evokes the deepest of emotions.

FTC Disclosure: This book was sent to me by the publisher for review on my blog. Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

Shop Indie Bookstores

She used a line from Trollope’s Barchester Towers as an epigraph: “There is no happiness in love, except as the end of an English novel.” Her plan was to begin with Jane Austen. After a brief examination of Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sense and Sensibility, all comedies, essentially, that ended with weddings, Madeleine was going to move on to the Victorian novel, where things got more complicated and considerably darker. Middlemarch and The Portrait of a Lady didn’t end with weddings. They began with the traditional moves of the marriage plot – the suitors, the proposals, the misunderstandings – but after the wedding ceremony they kept on going. These novels followed their spirited, intelligent heroines, Dorothea Brooke and Isabel Archer, into their disappointing married lives, and it was here that the marriage plot reached its greatest artistic expression. – from The Marriage Plot, page 22-33

Jeffrey Eugenides newest novel is set in the early 1980s and opens at Brown University in Rhode Island. Madeleine Hanna, an English major with a flair for the romantic, is writing her senior thesis on the marriage plot – unaware that her life will soon evolve into a more complicated version of her thesis. As Madeleine navigates the complex literary world of the 80s, trying to unravel the meaning behind the idea of semiotics, she meets Leonard Bankhead. Leonard is charming, erotic…and bi-polar (a fact which eludes Madeleine early on, but gradually becomes a factor in their relationship). Mitchell Grammaticus has been secretly in love with Madeleine for a long time. He is also deeply entrenched in religious studies and decides, after graduation, to travel with his friend Larry to Europe and then to India where he confronts the larger questions of life and love.

The novel follows these three characters in parallel and intersecting narratives as they navigate college, graduation, sexual freedom, feminism, mental illness, love, divorce, and finally maturity.

The Marriage Plot is all about the journey of its characters. Filled with humor, sadness, and an honest look at growing to adulthood during the 1980s, the novel drew me in completely. I graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1982, and so much of Eugenides observations of college life during that time period rang true to me. In many ways, Eugenides’ novel reminds me of another book I read earlier this year: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Both authors provide a perspective of middle-class America and depict deeply flawed, fully developed characters. That said, I slightly preferred The Marriage Plot – it is funnier, less cynical, and more optimistic than Franzen’s tome.

All of the characters in The Marriage Plot are struggling with their own demons. Leonard’s battle with bi-polar disorder is brilliantly drawn. He is a tragic character. Mitchell struggles with his own identity as a man, as well as how his life fits within the greater scheme of the universe and God. He was, perhaps, my favorite character in the book. Madeleine holds a romanticized view of life and has a hard time letting go of the typical female desire to “fix” the one she loves. Her growth, from idealistic college student to a woman who begins to finally recognize her worth as an individual, is triumphant.

Ultimately the book is a deep and satisfying novel about romantic love reflected against our societal mores and history. Eugenides brilliantly uses literary references and draws parallels between Madeleine’s senior theses and the books she reads to help the reader gain further understanding of the characters and their relationships with each other.

The Marriage Plot is a character-driven, literary novel which will appeal to readers who enjoy literary fiction. Also readers who survived college and its aftermath during the early 1980s in the United States will find a lot to love about Eugenides’ latest effort. I found the novel to be an intellectually stimulating, greatly satisfying reading which I can highly recommend.

• Quality of Writing:
• Characters:
• Plot:

Overall Rating:

Other reviews:

• Reviews by Lola
• things mean a lot
• nomadreader
• Fizzy Thoughts
• Farm Lane Books Blog
• Bibliophile by the Sea

Have YOU read and reviewed this book? Leave me a link to your review in the comments and I’ll add it to the list above.

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this book.