A Word About Awards

THE BIRDCATCHER by Gayl Jones   Nomination: National Book Finalist 2022   Date Read: October 30, 2022   Amanda Wordlaw is a writer (I know, the name) and her best friend, Catherine Shuger, is a sculptor. Both are well-regarded in their craft and have found a way to express their black point of view through their art. Set in the 1970s, the majority of The Birdcatcher occurs on Ibiza while Amanda is visiting Catherine and her husband, Ernest, also a writer.   Catherine is mentally unwell and is in and out of mental institutions. Although she is a self-harmer, she is more hell-bent on murdering her husband. Yet, he never leaves her. He never even entertains the idea of leaving her. Amanda’s presence creates a strange but useful third wheel dynamic and everyone assumes they are all three lovers. But Amanda is able to follow Catherine into places Ernest cannot go, such as the women’s bathroom or anywhere else Catherine may be able to harm herself.   Catherine and Ernest are trapped in a nev

ABSOLUTION by Patrick Flanery   Nominations: Center For Fiction Finalist 2012, Dublin Finalist 2014   Date Read: October 27, 2022   The fact that Absolution is a debut novel for Patrick Flanery is beyond belief. The complexity of the narrative, combined with the political climate and speculative occurrences is just mind boggling. I can’t imagine how one even begins to chart a novel of this involvedness. The outline would have driven most to insanity.   Centering around Clare, an acerbic older novelist who has reached the point in her years and career to warrant a novel, Absolution charts the course of her loss. She has lost her parents, her sister and brother-in-law, and most traumatic, her daughter Laura. Clare’s deliberate choice of biographer is Sam, a man who is closely linked with Laura and was rejected by Clare as a guardian when Sam was orphaned.   Although this doesn’t sound that complex, the interweaving realities, fictions and suppositions that surround Laura and Sam’s fated

MINARET by Leila Aboulela   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2007, Women's Prize Longlist 2006   Date Read: October 21, 2022   Minaret is my third novel by Leila Aboulela and I find each of them captivating, providing a window into a culture that I wouldn’t otherwise have a view of. Minaret, more specifically, allows the reader to glimpse a portrait of Islam that they may not have previously understood. Many Americans know of Islam through what they watch on TV news, which portrays all Muslims in a negative light.   Minaret follows the privileged life of Najwa as it crumbles down around her. She goes from the fortunate daughter of a politically important business man in Sudan, living a secular life and enjoying her friends to an impoverished maid living in London. When Sudan undergoes a violent coup, Najwa’s father is arrested, tried and hanged. Their mother, her brother Omar and her make a desperate escape to England. With their father a political prisoner, their funds are frozen and

THE BOBCAT by Katherine Forbes Riley   Nomination: Center For Fiction Longlist 2019   Date Read: October 16, 2022   The Bobcat is, in my opinion, an absolutely beautiful novel about the power of nature, the power of quiet and the beauty in shared humanity. Laurelei has escaped her Philadelphia college after a rape and is now living in a secluded cottage that abuts the forest somewhere in Vermont. She is enrolled in another college’s art program and has well-worn grooves for coping with her life to ensure she feels safe at all times. For money, she takes care of a very little boy in exchange for rent.   Her life is changed again one day when she is exploring in the woods with her young charge and encounters the hiker. Not until the end of the book do we learn his name but you realize how little that matters. His essence is what we get to experience and it is beautiful and simple and quiet. They both falsely believe there are obstacles to them being together – his virus and her graduate

THE DEBT TO PLEASURE by John Lanchester   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 1998, LA Times Finalist 1996   Date Read: October 15, 2022   The Debt To Pleasure is an incredibly unique book that is part cookbook, food criticism, travelogue and subtle thriller. Tarquin Winot, our snobbish narrator, has arrived in the south of France for the summer and begins stalking a couple. Surrounding this unusual endeavor are his thoughts and opinions on everything from art and post-modernism to the notes food should evoke and the proper aperitif.   The plot here seems incidental, as it crawls very slowly along so that the reader isn’t sure if Lanchester lost the thread. What is glaringly obvious is Winot’s opinion of himself as he spews his pearls of wisdom. Winot considers himself a chef and a scholar and his diatribes on both subjects serves to enshrine that perspective.   Winot is clearly privileged, becoming the sole inheritor of his parents’ estate upon their tragic death. His brother, Bartholomew, w

EILEEN by Otessa Moshfegh   Award: PEN/Hemingway Winner 2016   Nominations: Booker Finalist 2016, Center For Fiction Longlist 2015, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2015   Date Read: October 9, 2022   “Those people with perfect houses are simply obsessed with death. A house that is so well maintained, furnished with goo-looking furniture of high quality, decorated tastefully, everything in its place, becomes a living tomb. People truly engaged in life have messy houses.”   Eileen Dunlop is invisible. She wears odd, mismatched clothes, has a plain face and is able to fade into crowds without anyone realizing she’s gone. In other words, Eileen has no one in her life who loves her. She has no friends, no partner, no mother and a father that is constantly fall-down drunk. She is resentful and self-loathing.   Eileen works at a juvenile detention center called Moorehouse. She has worked there a long time and yet it seems as if she’s new. None of her colleagues befriend her and her work

APOSTLES OF LIGHT by Ellen Douglas   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1974   Date Read: October 6, 2022   Apostles Of Light reminds me somewhat of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest because of the same powerlessness, the same bleak acknowledgement that there’s no escape, the denial of personhood. Martha has lived with her mother all her life, having never married and left home. Martha does, however, have her long-term paramour Lucas, whose wife has finally died. When Martha’s mother dies, the family convenes to discuss her future; it has become abundantly clear Martha cannot live on her own.   Enter Howie, a long-term friend of the family and his wife having just died does not want to live on his own. Having him move in would provide Martha some company and protection and a small income from his rent. Howie, however, has moved in with grand plans that only become apparent after it’s too late. Howie realizes that Lucas, yes that Lucas, whose wife has also died is now looking for a small

LYRICS ALLEY by Leila Aboulela   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2012, Women's Prize Longlist 2011   Date Read: October 2, 2022   Lyrics Alley is a divinely beautiful novel which is an exploration of the distinct contrast for joy and sorrow. This is most exemplified in the lives of Mohamed Abuzeid, Nur Abuzeid and Usatz Badr. Set mostly in 1950’s Sudan, clearly the central focus of this novel is the Abuzeid clan. Mohamed Abuzeid is a very wealthy businessman in Sudan who has commanded a great deal of power and respect from his homeland and its people. Known as a fair-minded man, he supports two wives, four children, and two grandchildren, plus multiple maids, servants and visitors. His household is always bustling and alive.   Mohamed Abuzeid can buy anything his heart desires. He knows how lucky he is to have a wife with one foot in the old-world customs of Sudan (except for the barbaric female circumcision, lordy!) and a modern wife from Egypt that lives in the European way. Waheeba