A Word About Awards

COUNT JULIAN by Juan Goytisolo   Award: PEN/Translation Winner    Date Read: May 29, 2022   From sprinkling bugs in library books about Spain, to entering a model of a vagina at an amusement park, this novel is bizarre to say the least. I don’t know if it’s a cultural disconnect or a lack in my knowledge of Spanish history, Count Julian just didn’t resonate with me. I know how revered this book was, by the critics, by Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, and by the PEN committee. I just didn’t gain anything by reading it.   Count Julian is exiled from his native Spain and is now living in Tangiers. With no real plot to guide him and in prose that defies sentence structure, Count Julian obsesses about everything wrong with Spain from his distant vantage. He applauds Count Julian for “…facilitating the rape of Spanish virgins by the invading Moors. At one point he considers how to infect the whole country with syphilis.” [1]  He abhors Spain’s literature, religion (Catholicism), cultural b

ABOVE THE WATERFALL by Ron Rash   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2017   Date Read: May 27, 2022   Above The Waterfall follows two people who live in a small, impoverished community riddled with drugs, both trying to overcome traumas of the past. Becky, a small child when her elementary school was subjected to a school shotting, stopped speaking for months due to the trauma she endured. As an adult, her boyfriend became an eco-terrorist and was killed. Now the manager of a small state park, Becky takes solace in nature and solitude.   Les is a sheriff of the same small town in North Carolina and is eagerly looking forward to his imminent retirement. His ex-wife attempted suicide and then divorced him not much later, leaving him alone and reflective. We watch him conduct a meth bust that is highly disturbing, particularly because a child is involved, and there is a new case of someone pouring kerosene into a lake at a fishing resort.    The two narrators, Becky and Les, alternate chapters.

THE AMATEUR MARRIAGE by Anne Tyler   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2006, Women's Prize Longlist 2004   Date Read: May 25, 2022   The Amateur Marriage is indeed about a marriage but one that is more conflicted than smooth sailing. While Michael and Pauline love each other, they rock each other’s last nerve resulting in a tumultuous relationship that scars those around them. Pauline thinks it’s kind of funny in retrospect. Michael very much does not.   Michael and Pauline meet by coincidence just before the outbreak of WWII. Their courtship was brief, as dictated by the times, and Pauline is enthralled with the danger that lies ahead for Michael on the front. Of course, Michael had no intention of enlisting but rides that wave of pressure until he actually ships out. Fortunately, he’s injured during basic training and never has to endure real combat.   Without admitting it to each other, they are both getting cold feet about actually getting married but they both ride that wave until

ACADEMY STREET by Mary Costello   Nomination: Dublin Finalist 2016   Date Read: May 21, 2022   “We need, in love, to practice only one thing – letting go.”   Tess is a girl born in Ireland who loses her mother all too young. Raised by a stern father, she never experiences the kind of paternal love that she so desires. Realizing that a future in Ireland is limited, she moves to America and joins her sister Claire. Not long after arriving, she loses her sister.   Tess only briefly knows romantic love through the friend of a friend named David. They only meet through social events and never meet on their own or have a date. One night, after a wedding a drinking too much champagne, Tess’ inhibitions are sufficiently numbed as to make love with David, giving him her virginity. She does not realize in the moment that that will be the last time she sees him and that she is carrying his child.   Her son, Theo, becomes her entire world in addition to her job as a nurse. She lives her life for h

THE CHRISTENING PARTY by Francis Steegmuller   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1961   Date Read: May 19, 2022   I’m not entirely sure that The Christening Party has a purpose or a point. Aside from discussing all the family’s various backgrounds and relationships, nothing actually happens here except for the choosing of godparents, the christening itself and an estranged family member’s husband dying of a heart attack. Perhaps Steegmuller meant this as a character study? I feel like I’m missing something.    Seen through the eyes of a 7-year old boy, the narrator (do we ever really learn his name?) describes each family member and the drama associated with them as the immediate and extended family arrive for the christening, which is also a sort of family reunion of sorts. Our narrator is still unsure of the benefits of having a younger sister, but he is adequately intrigued by the backgrounds of his relatives.   I generally love older novels and was dismayed when I saw the low rank

A BURNING by Megha Majumdar   Nominations: Carnegie Finalist 2021, National Book Longlist 2020, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2020   Date Read: May 18, 2022   A Burning follows the travails of three people in the cut-throat survival world of India. Jivan, from a Muslim family, has dropped out of school to get a job to support her parents. Her father broke his back in a police altercation and now cannot work. Lovely is a trans woman who has her heart set on an acting career and would do just about anything to get on the screen. Finally, PT Sir is a schoolteacher with loftier ambitions as he falls in with a new political party that is slowly gaining steam.   These are the characters Majumdar presents us with as she grapples with religion, identity and class. What launches these three into each others’ orbits is a bomb that goes off near Jivan’s house. She later posts on Facebook that the police, with their do-nothing attitude, might as well be terrorists. Not long after that post

ACTS OF DESPERATION by Megan Nolan   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2022   Date Read: May 18, 2022   The narrator of Acts Of Desperation is indeed desperate. Initially, I believed she would get dumped and turn into a stalker but this was a much more intimate deep dive into a very broken and flawed woman’s journey to herself. At times tedious and repetitive, overall this is an insightful and meaningful unravelling of all the ways the narrator sabotages herself and her relationship with Ciaran.   She meets Ciaran at an art gallery opening and they are off and running. After he briefly leaves her and returns to his ex-girlfriend, when they reunite they almost immediately move in together. From the get-go our nameless narrator knows that Ciaran doesn’t truly love her. She thinks he is biding his time until he returns once again to his ex-girlfriend who is the love of his life.   To make up for this awareness, that neither, honestly, truly love each other, she presents a different side of hers

BLUE JEWELLERY by Katharina Winkler   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2020   Date Read: May 14, 2022   Blue Jewellery is a powerful novella about domestic abuse. Blue jewelry is worn by women with abusive partners or parents or both. Only women wear it and it is private. You never remark on another woman’s jewelry. The jewelry worn by women shows the world that they belong to someone who cares enough to beat them. Or is this true? Is it that women have become so inured to the inevitability of a beating that their jewelry just becomes a fact of life?   Filiz is just a young girl when she is approached by Yunus and he declares she is his. Not that he loves her. Not that he can’t live without her. But she is his, his possession. And his she does become against the wishes of her family. And almost from the beginning, Yunus and his mother begin erasing Filiz’s existence, day-by-day.   Not only does Yunus beat Filiz so badly that she is in bed for days, sparking a modicum of remorse from him, bu

AMY & ISABELLE by Elizabeth Strout   Award: LA Times Winner 1999   Nominations: PEN/Faulkner Finalist 2000,  Women's Prize Finalist 2000     Date Read: May 12, 2022   Amy & Isabelle is about the complex relationship between a mother and daughter. Isabelle harbors a secret that has influenced her entire life, keeping her closed off and stuck in her life. Amy is navigating the chaotic world of adolescence and establishing an identity outside of her mother. But as a single mom and only daughter, the relationship between these two is fraught.   Isabelle had Amy when she was very young, scandalously getting pregnant by her father’s best friend. Her mother died shortly after Amy was born. Since that time, Isabelle has raised Amy on her own, never finishing college and working in a dead-end job where she isolates herself from her co-workers. Due to a succession of events, Isabelle becomes close friends with two of the women in her office, Dottie and Bev, and they are all able to m

CATACOMBS by Mary Anne Evans   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2021   Date Read: May 12, 2022   Catacombs is a thriller in the Faye Longchamp series. I haven’t read any other novels by Evans so this was my first introduction to the series and her writing style. As a thriller, I wasn’t all that thrilled. I found Catacombs entertaining which is the exact reason I ventured into this, however, even during the most action-packed scenes, my reaction was always “meh.”   Catacombs is set in Oklahoma City where a bomb explodes at a historic hotel during an anthropology (?) conference. Attending this conference is none other than Faye Longchamp, who I suppose gets herself into all kinds of trouble considering this is number 12 in the series. The FBI immediately retains her as a consultant and away we go.   Beneath the historic Gershwin Hotel is an entire city that went three stories deep, once occupied by Chinese immigrants. It was said there were restaurants, casinos, graves, stores and living spac

ALL FOR LOVE by Dan Jacobson   Nominations: Booker Longlist 2005, Dublin Longlist 2007   Date Read: May 10, 2022   All For Love is a beautiful historical novel based on the memoirs of Princess Louise, daughter of Leopold II, King of Belgium and wife of Philipp, Prince of Saxe-Coburg, and Geza Mattachich, an untitled everyman who is a minor army officer. The affair between Louise and Geza is at the center of this novel and a scandal that swept Europe in the late 1800s.   Jacobson does an amazing job of using both memoirs as a reference and filling in the missing conversations, emotions, thoughts and actions that aren’t included in their historical references. Their affair endured numerous separations, hardships brought on by their own impulsivity and a constant battle for money to support their lavish lifestyle.   From the very first moment these lovers set on eyes on each other, both out for a ride on a beautiful day, Mattachich in particular devises multiple ways to casually meet up a

DEATH OF THE BLACK-HAIRED GIRL by Robert Stone   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2015   Date Read: May 6, 2022   A young college girl is killed in a hit-and-run but the questions is: Was it an accident or murder? The more her life is exposed, the reader realizes that there are a lot of people who could have wished her harm.    Maud Stack attends an upper-crust-East Coast college and is in her senior year, working on her final thesis. She has begun to find her voice but the one thing that is causing her pain is her thesis advisor, Professor Steven Brookman. He is not only her advisor, but her lover as well. Brookman is married, with a child on the way and knows he needs to end things with Maud. She’s just so damned compelling that he keeps not doing what he knows he needs to do. Eventually, however, he does man-up and tell her that his wife is coming back into town and it needs to end. Maud is devastated.   The daughter of a retired detective, Maud’s education was nearly out of reach for he

A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WIFE by Tommy Wieringa   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2018   Date Read: May 5, 2022   Edward has managed to get to mid-life without really falling in love and starting a family. He is quite successful and recognizable in his career, but his personal life has never been his priority. That is until one day when he sees a girl on a bicycle and his entire life changes. He is instantly smitten, becomes obsessed with her and thanks his lucky stars when he runs into her again at a café.   Edward knows that he is considerably older than Ruth, which could present a problem. But the age gap never becomes a serious issue, except in the back of Edward’s mind. In the company of Ruth and her friends, he realizes that she hasn’t exactly made him younger, rather, he has made her older. He feels somewhat guilty for this.   As with all love that proceeds into marriage, the inevitable discussion of starting a family comes up and they realize in tandem that the answer is yes. They want to

AFTER THE LIE by Kerry Fisher   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2018   Date Read: May 3, 2022   After The Lie could have been a fun guilty pleasure, however, I just didn’t find Lydia to be a very likable character. She’s so obsessed by her mishap in high school that she has let it poison her entire life. And once the reader is privy to what she did wrong, the transgression isn’t even that bad. I was incredibly disappointed. The mayhem she caused in her own life as an adult was much worse than what went down when she was only 13.     I can only assume that Fisher was attempting to demonstrate how one incident can spiral out of control depending on how you deal with it. I still don’t understand why her parents changed her name but not her father’s name? The mother insisted on getting rid of their dog because he was too unique but didn’t bother changing their own names. I just don’t get it.   Lydia is kind of a bitch. Her seething resentment over her son’s girlfriend goes beyond her being the