A Word About Awards

LADDER OF YEARS by Anne Tyler   Nomination: Women’s Prize Finalist 1996   Date Read: December 29, 2022   You know how make-up tutorials that look like a hot mess say “trust the process.” And then they end up stunning. I would have to say the same about Ladder Of Years. While the story was engrossing and the characters rich and vivid, I couldn’t understand Delia’s motives for walking away. It was never quite clear. Yet, I know that there is nothing more invisible than a middle aged woman.   Delia is married to Sam, a doctor, and has three children – Susan, Ramsay and Carroll. Her kids are all in their late teens and early twenties and on the precipice of starting their own lives. As Delia begins to realize she is no longer needed – by her kids or her husband – a chance encounter at a grocery store begins an affair with a neighbor. Although never consummated, Delia relished being desired, seen and sought after. Who doesn’t?   Realizing this grocery store man is not what she ultimately wa

THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLE by John Cheever   Award: National Book Winner 1958   Date Read: December 22, 2022   Leander Wapshot is the pater familias of the Wapshot family and the chronicler of the tale told therein. A long line of Wapshots have decorated the landscape around St. Botolphs, Massachusetts since God was a boy. Their name is well-known throughout the town. His Aunt Honore lives in a bungalow on the same property as Leander and his family – wife Sarah and sons Moses and Coverly.    From the time Leander was a child through to his sons heading out on their own to find their fortunes, we experience the lives of this quirky family – sometimes sad, sometimes humorous, always real. The character of Coverly was largely informed by Cheever’s own experiences as he was growing up.   Moses is set out into the world at the behest of Honore, who caught him having sex with a house guest, and it pissed her off. She made connections for him in Washington DC so that he had a decent start in his

THE BODY ARTIST by Don DeLillo   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2003, James Tait Black Finalist 2001   Date Read: December 21, 2022   Lauren Hartke is a well-known performance artist married to an older man, Rey, who is also an artist. Ray kills himself after a terse breakfast and a brief exchange about him going for a drive. The police inform Lauren that Rey killed himself in his ex-wife’s apartment. At the time of Rey’s death, the couple had been living in a secluded house in the woods outside of New York City. Against the advice of Lauren’s friends, she decides to remain outside the city in the house they had shared.   Lauren’s grief is immense as any partner who is left behind would be. She wanders the halls of the house, having only the briefest contact with the outside world, disconnecting completely from herself and the physical world. One day shortly after Rey’s death, she hears a small notices coming from an unused bedroom upstairs. As she bravely goes up to explore, she can’t f

THE EDGE OF SADNESS by Edwin O’Connor   Award: Pulitzer Winner 1962   Date Read: December 18, 2022   Father Kennedy is a priest at Saint Paul’s, an impoverished and run-down parish in the Catholic diocese. He has fallen from grace, having spent many years as an alcoholic and in a rehab of sorts, losing his favored position of priest at Saint Raymond’s, a wealthy and well-regarded church.    Father Kennedy, in his younger years was very close to Helen and John, two of the five children of Charlie Carmody. Charlie is a wealthy man and manages his various real estate holdings in Boston, which are mostly comprised of tenements. Charlie is a very odd man, altering reality to suit himself, often passing off lies to make himself look better but without the malice of intending to lie. Overall, his personality evokes a narcissist. I know that word is thrown around quite a bit lately, but when the shoe fits…   John, now known as Father Carmody, also joined the church around the same time as Fath

RED DRESS IN BLACK & WHITE by Eliot Ackerman   Nomination: Carnegie Longlist 2021   Date Read: December 16, 2022   Catherine seems to have everything an expat living in Turkey could want. Her husband Murat affords her wealth and influence and she has a beautiful adopted son, William. But with her marriage crumbling, she realizes how much the government can interfere in her plans to return to the U.S. with her son and photographer lover, Peter.   In retaliation, Murat seeks the help of an American diplomat to stop his wife from leaving but simultaneously compromises himself in exchange for this favor. Murat and Kristin are quickly embroiled in an affair and Kristin is in a position to help Murat, through a credit guarantee, quickly right his sinking financial ship. Although his family has benefited from great wealth in the past, Murat is currently broke. Kristin’s guarantees allow him to get back in the game in an important way. Before long, Murat is bringing Kristin information tha

ARCADIA by Lauren Groff   Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2013, Dublin Longlist 2014, LA Times Finalist 2012   Date Read: December 13, 2022   Arcadia is not just an engaging, entertaining read. Groff struggles with the question of the ideal community, established by very flawed humans. Bit is born in a VW bus, the first baby born among a group of hippies looking to establish their own commune. When they finally land in the forest of New York, the decrepit estate they find there is named Arcadia. Led by a man named Handy, living in buses, this group of hippies and misfits begin to set down roots and begin to build their communal ideal.   Living on the land is hard, cold, unforgiving. While relationships run deep and there is kindness and magic to be found in the forest, there is also children experiencing real life too early, jealousy, power struggles, hopelessness. For Abe and Hannah, Bit’s parents, there is certainly love but also depression for Hannah, who experiences a harsher life t

AN ISLAND by Karen Jennings   Nomination: Booker Longlist 2021   Date Read: December 10, 2022   A short but mighty novel, An Island explores the concept of home, family, identity, the impact of political upheaval and the immigrant experience, when one’s suffering is so intense they move from one shitty country to the next. Samuel has finally found a peaceful home on an island somewhere off the coast of Africa. He was hired as a lighthouse keeper and after a tumultuous life, most of which was spent in prison as a political prisoner, he has carved out a life for himself on this island, enjoying a tranquil existence that basks in the quiet tasks of daily living.   Only after exploring Samuel’s life does the reader understand why such an isolated, spare and lonely existence satisfy him, with no desire to escape but only to grow deeper roots. His life witnessed the end of the British occupation, the installation of a brutal dictator and yet another dictator after the first was poisoned. Sam

APEIROGON by Colum McCann   Nominations: Booker Longlist 2020, BookTube Longlist 2021, Carnegie Longlist 2021, Dublin Finalist 2021   Date Read: December 8, 2022   Apeirogon is a shape with a countably infinite number of sides, much like the conflict between Israel and Palestine. McCann masterfully blends fact and fiction to create a rich picture of this conflict and present it in personal terms through two families, one Palestinian and one Israeli, and the losses they have amassed due to this never-ending saga.   Bassam is an Israeli, who has been fighting the Israeli occupation his entire life. He has served seven years in prison, enduring beatings and humiliations, losing a significant portion of his life to atone for what? After he is released, he makes the commitment to himself to longer be political, to no longer take a side, to hear out his “enemies” in the hopes that they will see the humanity in each other and come to some sort of peace. And then he loses his beloved daughter,

THE ENCHANTMENT OF LILY DAHL by Siri Hustvedt   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 1998, Women’s Prize Longlist 1997   Date Read: December 4, 2022   Lily, at the tender age of 19, is on her own. She works at a diner as a waitress, but her dream is to be an actress. She participates in community theater and enjoys every moment of it. Her life seems somewhat set until Ed moves into the Stuart Hotel across the street and then everything begins to go haywire.   Lily and Ed’s windows face each other and she is able to see Ed working on his paintings. I was never quite sure why Ed left New York to come to Webster, Minnesota, but nevertheless he becomes Lily’s neighbor. Without a lot of thought and a lot of bravado, Lily strips one night in front of her window and Ed gets an eyeful. She follows this up with a visit to his studio the next night and, of course, they have sex.   The small town of Webster is filled with strange characters, but Martin stands out. He stutters and is simply odd, writing m