A Word About Awards

HURRICANE SEASON by Fernanda Melchor   Nominations: Booker Finalist 2020, Carnegie Longlist 2021, Dublin Finalist 2021, National Book Longlist 2020   Date Read: August 29, 2022   In this tense and gritty novel, Melchor binds rumor, hearsay and morbid curiosity about a Witch in the local Mexican town. She is loathed, feared and despised while also alluring and entertaining. She often has the local boys over for drug and sex parties until one day those same boys turn on her in a gruesome display of violence. Although everyone can agree she is dead, found face-up in a canal under a seething pile of black snakes, no one can agree if her spirit has departed.   Living alone and separate from others, in a house that is careworn and disheveled, the Witch as the locals know her is actually the daughter of the Old Witch. No one knows by whom or when the Young Witch was conceived, only that she appeared one day under the Old Witch’s roof.    The Witch is often called on for curses and cures and c

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2020   Date Read: August 27, 2022   I didn’t know a whole lot about Where The Crawdads Sing when I picked it up, except for the controversy surrounding the author, Delia Owens. Apparently, after the book came out, Owens was questioned again about a local murder, one that remained unsolved and that she had based her book on.   Kya is a girl that the world has left behind. Her mother left one day, walking out on her abusive husband and abandoning her children to his violent whims. One by one, her brothers and sisters left when they couldn’t take the violence anymore until it was just Kya and her father. He tried to pull himself together for her sake, but was ultimately unable – his demons too deep. And just like everyone else, one day he failed to come home, until that day turned into years.   Kya was only 10 when she was left on her own, figuring out how to feed herself and survive in the North Carolina marsh. The bird

A SINGLE PEBBLE by John Hersey   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1957   Date Read: August 25, 2022   A young American engineer is sent to China to assess the possibility of building a dam somewhere along the Yangtze River to improve farm irrigation and to make the journey upriver safer and faster. Although we never learn the name of our narrator, he spends considerable time preparing for his journey by learning the language and customs of his host country.   Upon arrival, the actual sights, sounds and smells of the junk upon the river are nothing like what he expected. Our engineer is shocked that the Chinese men operating the junk seem complacent, with no real drive to arrive or succeed or progress beyond their means. This is in direct opposition to the entire mission of our narrator, who is exclusively focused on the engineering project for which he was sent and which he hopes will establish his career.   One worker on the junk particularly stands out to him, a leader by the name

THE BEGINNER’S GOODBYE by Anne Tyler   Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2013, Dublin Longlist 2014   Date Read: August 23, 2022   The Beginner’s Goodbye follows Aaron, crippled in his arm and leg from a childhood illness, who isn’t held back in his life by anything. Aaron and his sister, Nandina, both work in their family’s privately owned publishing house. Aaron is married to Dorothy, who he loves very much, but his marriage isn’t going as smoothly as he had hoped. And then Dorothy suddenly dies, struck by a falling tree.   Although she’s gone, Dorothy randomly shows up in Aaron’s life – on a sidewalk, at the home they shared, waiting in a line. They are able to have conversations they weren’t able to have when she was alive, giving Aaron an opportunity to confront his grief and the truth about how much they kept from each other. Although Aaron’s grief is profound, he learns how he could have been a better husband.   This tragic accident obviously changes Aaron’s life, but it also chang

A DISTANT SHORE by Caryl Phillips   Nominations: Booker Longlist 2003, Dublin Longlist 2005, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2003, PEN/Faulkner Finalist 2004   Date Read: August 22, 2022   Two next-door neighbors from very different backgrounds meet and become unlikely friends. Their reasons for ending up in their small village are very different from where they set out to be and their ending is as sad as their pasts.   You can tell from the get-go that Dorothy isn’t quite right in the head. She communes with her parents as if they are still alive and refuses to believe that her sister, Sylvia, has passed away. Not only can she not accept her death, she cannot accept Sylvia’s admission that their father sexually abused Sylvia.   For all of her bizarreness, Deborah manages to conduct several liaisons. After her husband, Brian, abandons her for another woman, Dorothy manages to have an affair with the married owner of her local bodega and with a married substitute teacher. Both tim

GIVE ME YOUR HAND by Megan Abbott   Nomination: LA Times Finalist 2018   Date Read: August 20, 2022   Kit and Diane have known each other since high school and it seems fate cannot keep them out of each other’s lives. For Kit, this is a nightmare; for Diane, a gift. On a girl’s night their senior year, Diane shared her deepest, darkest secret. But it was more than a secret; it was a confession. Diane killed her father.   Diane’s demeanor is stoic and although it’s never mentioned in the book, she is clearly a psychopath, unable to truly feel for others. Kit is burdened by Diane’s confession, having nightmares and carrying the weight of it, dragging her down. She yearns to tell someone, anyone. For all of Kits fear, though, Diane and Kit are highly competitive, pushing each other to their very limits in running and academia. Kit has no choice but to cut off her friendship with Diane as a result.   Fast forward to both women becoming PhD candidates until one day, the professor managing K

THE BLIND SIDE OF THE HEART by Julia Franck   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2011   Date Read: August 19, 2022   Blind Side Of The Heart focuses on the relationship between a mother and her son. Specifically, how do you parent a child when your life and the world literally tilt sideways. Do you focus on the greater good or sacrifice your own child? This is at the heart of Franck’s critically acclaimed novel.    At the end of the war, Helene is informed that her estranged husband is not coming back to her. With nobody and nothing left to lose, Helene rides with her son to a train station, tells him to wait on a bench and never returns. How could a mother make this decision, let alone actually follow-through on it?   Helene and her sister Martha grow up in the country with a mentally unstable mother and a largely absent father. Because of the rejection by their mother, who cannot surpass the sons she lost in childbirth, Martha and Helene are close. They are close in every way you can imagin

DEPT. OF SPECULATION by Jenny Offill   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2016, LA Times Finalist 2014, NY Times Finalist 2014, PEN/Faulkner Finalist 2015, Rathbones Folio Finalist 2015   Read: August 15, 2022   In a strange way, the Dept. Of Speculation reminds me of Chemistry in that both novels offer insight and prose in brief observations and vignettes that are pointed and brief. Their brevity releases a kind of insight that perhaps a longer sentence structure might hide. In short, every word matters.   The love letters the husband and wife used to send to each other would always be postmarked “from” the Dept. Of Speculation. Both were well aware that the future was uncertain and their love might not last the test of time. And to that point, the husband has an affair and rather than cut and run, they both stick around to see what’s beyond that betrayal. Is there anything there worth saving?   They have a daughter who understands that their family life is frayed. She heartbreakingly write

THE BOLLYWOOD BRIDE by Sonali Dev   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2017   Date Read: August 15, 2022   Ria Parkar has left her disastrous past behind in Chicago and has made it big in Bollywood in Mumbai. Known as the Ice Princess for her frosty demeanor, she vowed she would never go back to the U.S. At least, until her dearest cousin announces he is getting married and her presence is non-negotiable. But returning means she has to face the love of her life, Vikram, who she brutally left and hasn’t spoken to in 10 years.   Mustering all her courage, she makes the trip and, of course, the first person she runs into is Vikram. The sparks between them are still very much alive. After only a short time, Vikram and Ria are back it, riding the hobby horse. Why he keeps accepting her back again and again, I cannot fathom. I understand the power of love (trust me), but after someone treats you like shit again and again, you either like the pain or have a learning disability.   This brings us to R

CHEMISTRY by Weike Wang   Award: PEN/Hemingway Winner 2018 Nomination: Aspen Words Longlist 2018   Date Read: August 12, 2022   Whereas the last novel I read seemed overly verbose (The Mercy Seat), Chemistry is sparse, witty and dry. Wang has a talent for looking at life from a completely different perspective and translating those perceptions into prose. I adored this novel.   Facing an uncertain future, our unnamed narrator is going through an ambivalence crisis. Her chosen career, chemistry, is not progressing as it should and her PhD advisor is threatening to fire her. Her live-in boyfriend, Eric, wants their relationship to move forward and proposes but she’s not sure that’s what she wants either. Under the pressure of being mentally stuck, she breaks down one day, cuts of her hair and goes to her lab and breaks all her beakers.   Part chemistry facts, part analysis of what a Chinese daughter of immigrants owes her hard-working parents, part insight to American culture, Chemistry

THE MERCY SEAT by Rilla Askew   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 1999, PEN/Faulkner Finalist 1998   Date Read: August 10, 2022   At the beginning, The Mercy Seat was captivating as the reader is immersed in a past that is difficult to imagine. The bravery it takes, even when being chased by the law, to pack up one’s entire existence and take off for unknown territory is astounding. And many don’t make the journey, as witnessed by Demaris (?), the matriarch of the Lodi family. Mattie, the young narrator of the novel, believes her mother died of a broken heart, unable to leave behind her native Kentucky for Oklahoma.   What started out as promising, however, quickly became tedious. Askew attempts for a level of spirituality that did not seem to mesh with the story. I understand that the children were made to seem haunted and strange, particularly Mattie, but this side-track – from the black wet-nurse to the native housekeeper – only served to exemplify overt racism, rather than mystical beli

ANNABEL by Kathleen Winter   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2012, Women's Prize Finalist 2011   Date Read: August 8, 2022   Annabel is a novel about identity, gender, and understanding. Set in the 1970s, Wayne was born a hermaphrodite and, as most parents have been urged to do, choose a gender for their child. They decided their child would be a boy and his name is Wayne.   As Wayne grows, however, he displays more characteristics of being a girl – trapped menstruation blood, breast buds, etc. While Treadway and Jacinta, Wayne’s parents, witness these traits, they never discuss it openly with each other or Wayne. In fact, Wayne is never told that he was born both male and female. The parents believed once they decided to raise their child as a boy, he would be a boy.   Wayne’s process of finding his true self is stunted by his lack of information, his isolated upbringing in Labrador and a mild fear of what lies within him. When he does discover that there is a girl within himself, thi

NIGHTCRAWLING by Leila Mottley   Nominations: Booker Longlist 2022, BookTube Longlist 2023, Center For Fiction Longlist 2022, Oprah Book Club 2022, PEN/Hemingway Longlist 2023   Date Read: August 1, 2022   It’s been a VERY long time since I’ve given a book five stars but this one absolutely deserves it. Mottley’s prose is absolutely superb and I never wanted her writing to end. The story, however, you want to end – hopefully in some beautiful ending that gives Kiara some reprieve from the reality she faces far too young.   Kiara and her brother, Marcus, have been left on their own in an Oakland apartment complex, both parents dissolved by death and prison. Kiara is laser-focused on making the rent and keeping her family together, even if her only remaining family is Marcus. Marcus, however, has other priorities, trying to make it big as a rap artist.   The two good things in Kiara’s life are Trevor, the next-door crackhead neighbor’s son, and Ale, Kiara’s sometime, mostly girlfriend. I