A Word About Awards

WEST by Carys Davies   Nominations: BookTube Longlist 2019, Rathbones Folio Finalist 2019   Date Read: March 30, 2023   West is a strange novella about a man, John Bellman, who has recently lost his wife and has found himself frustrated and dissatisfied. He has a daughter, Bess, who is only 12 years old. Bellman encounters a news article that describes bones that were found in Kentucky of a creature that no one has ever laid eyes on and Bellman is instantly obsessed.   The bones, from the description in the book, seem to be from a wooly mammoth, which are already extinct when Bellman decides to head west from his farm in Pennsylvania in search of these mysterious creatures. To say his quest is ill-advised would be an understatement. While Bellman knows the journey ahead is treacherous, the loss of his wife compels him to reorient his life focus and do something monumental to begin again.   Bellman packs only what is necessary for the journey and what he believes would be of value in tr

FIELDWORK by Mischa Berlinski   Nominations: Center For Fiction Finalist 2007, Dublin Longlist 2009, National Book Finalist 2007   Date Read: March 27, 2023   A journalist, Mischa, moves to Thailand with his girlfriend, Rachel, and through a friend of his, hears about a white woman (farang) who is serving 50 years in a Thai jail for murder. Martiya had murdered a farang missionary and only a few weeks prior had committed suicide by eating too much opium. Mischa was instantly enthralled by the story.   Although Mischa is cobbling together income through freelance journalism, he begins to research Martiya’s story and the deeper he digs, the more captivating the story. Why did she kill a missionary? After Martiya completed the anthropologic fieldwork, in which she was studying the Dyalo, a remote tribe in Thailand, why did she return to Thailand after a brief stay back in Berkeley? How did she even meet David, the missionary she killed? Mischa was consumed by these questions.   Martiya wa

WHEN THE EMPEROR WAS DIVINE by Julie Otsuka   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2004, Women’s Prize Longlist 2003   Date Read: March 26, 2023   The internment of Japanese Americans is a stain on the history of the U.S. When The Emperor Was Divine is a novel about the personal experience of those Americans who were taken from their homes, rounded up and incarcerated. During a time when racism against Japanese was at an all-time high, the acts of the federal government intensified and institutionalized those sentiments.   With only two weeks’ notice, Japanese Americans were told to pack up their lives and prepare to report to camps. Possessions were sold, with speed superseding price, effectively robbing these Americans of their wealth. Although they were allowed to retain their real property, family heirlooms, appliances just paid off, cars and clothing that wouldn’t fit into a suitcase needed to be sold or stored. Many made profit at the expense of this devastation: what didn’t sell turned

THE SCHOOLDAYS OF JESUS by J.M. Coetzee   Awards: Nobel Winner 2016   Nomination: Booker Longlist 2016   Date Read: March 23, 2023   David is now deeply enmeshed with Simon and Ines. Although they are now a family of sorts without a home, they become laborers on a farm on the outskirts of Estrella. David is just as precocious as always and wanders the farm where Simon and Ines pick fruit. He plays with the other kids on the farm and enjoys the wildness just as much as the others.   With the picking season over, the sisters who own the farm take a liking to David and believe he has a bright future. They agree to pay his tuition at a school of dance, the only one of its kind in Estrella. In order to attend every day, Simon and Ines move to the heart of Estrella, where Simon distributes leaflets and Ines works in a woman’s clothing shop. David begins to learn to dance.   Over time, the big questions of parenthood plague Simon and Ines, who already have difficulties in their own relationsh

INDELICACY by Amina Cain   Nominations: Center For Fiction Finalist 2020, Rathbones Folio Finalist 2021   Date Read: March 21, 2023   Indelicacy is a timeless tale of a woman searching for her own truth and purpose in life. Vitoria’s dilemma as a woman could have happened last century, last year or tomorrow. She is a poor woman, cleaning a museum for a living with no prospects for upward mobility. The one thing she does have is her mind; she’s an avid writer and appreciator of the artwork she is surrounded by.   One of the patrons of the museum essentially sweeps her off her feet. He is wealthy, older and aware of her circumstances. She is never quite clear if she truly loves this man, but the math definitely works out. Vitoria goes from rags to riches – from working herself to the bone to a woman of leisure. She tells her husband she is afraid of growing bored because he does not want her to take classes or be consumed by anything that would distract from him.   Vitoria’s husband clea

THE MASTER by Colm Toibin   Awards: Dublin Winner 2006, LA Times Winner 2004   Nominations: Booker Finalist 2004, NY Times Finalist 2004   Date Read: March 19, 2023   In The Master, Toibin embarks on a fictionalized version of Henry James’ life, focusing primarily on his mid-life. Having been born and raised in America, James makes his home in England, traveling through Europe in search of new experiences and material for his novels. At the outset of the novel, we see James mortified by the flop of one his novels turned into a play.   James has dedicated his life to his craft. He never marries and his relationships are squeezed in around the love of his life – writing. This is true for family and for friendships. After the flop of his play, when he was literally booed off the stage, James escapes London to avoid running into anyone he may know. In his travels, he falls in love with Rye, a small town in England and sets his heart on residing there.   James moves forwards and backwards i

TOUCH by Alexi Zentner   Nominations: Center For Fiction Finalist 2011, Dublin Longlist 2013   Date Read: March 16, 2023   In Touch, Zentner explores four generations of a Canadian family who persevere against incredibly odds – through arctic blizzards, food shortages, tragic deaths, fires and even against fantastical mythic creatures evocative of Inuit mythology. The narrator, Stephen, is reminiscing about the stories handed down through his family as he sists vigil by his dying mother’s bedside. That she will pass is inevitable, it’s just a matter of when.   Stephen’s family were the early settlers of a gold mining town that endured long after the boom, transitioning to logging and supplying miners in neighboring towns with lumber. The winters are brutal and a surplus of kindling and food is the difference between surviving and, in one instance, cannibalism. The mere act of surviving a winter was magical act.   Underneath the surface of the ice and between the trees in the woods lurk

PARADAIS by Fernanda Melchor   Nominations: Booker Longlist 2022, Dublin Finalist 2023, LA Times Finalist 2022   Date Read: March 14, 2023   Without much thought or care, Polo embarks on a brutal mission to prove himself to his uncle. Spurred on by Franco, also known as Fatboy, Franco is hell-bent on having a rich resident of Paradais. Since Franco can’t have her by any other means, he decides he will rape her and then kill her and her family. Polo is enlisted as an accomplice and he is there to earn enough money from robbing them to leave his sponging mother and pregnant cousin.   Polo is a gardener in Paradais, a community for wealthy homeowners in a Mexican suburb. Franco is the grandson of two residents of Paradais. After-hours, to avoid returning home, Polo hangs out with Franco on the dock of the complex. Polo quickly realizes he loathes Franco and everything he stands for. Yet, as Franco spins his plan over time, Polo at first doesn’t take him seriously. As Franco’s seriousness

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER by Leonardo Sciascia   Award: PEN/Translation Winner 1978   Date Read: March 8, 2023   A driver on a wander comes across a sign that piques his curiosity. On a lark, he decides to stop, confused by the sign announcing a hermitage and discovers a combined hermitage and hotel. When he inquires of the attendant behind the desk whether it’s one or the other, the priest essentially says yes. And so begins a strange tale encompassing a brief exploration of faith that includes a murder mystery.   What the driver has unwittingly encountered is a retreat amongst the scions of the clergy and industry that includes “spiritual exercises” combined with the female attentions of five prostitutes. Out of curiosity, the interloper decides to stay and witness these sacrosanct rituals. During his bizarre time there, one of the captains of industry is killed, along with another man suspected of blackmail. Before all is said and done, the owner of the hotel and a noted doer of good deeds

DROP CITY by T.C. Boyle   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2005, National Book Finalist 2003, NY Times Finalist 2003   Date Read: March 7, 2023   Boyle imagines what would happen when the 60’s counter-culture encounters the basic need for survival and puts to the test the ideals a hippie commune profess to believe. Having worn out their welcome in California’s Russian River, Drop City, as their commune comes to be known, need to find a new place to entrench without the limitations of zoning laws and regulations.   The group’s nominal leader, Norm, has an uncle that abandoned a cabin in Alaska’s bush, one of the most remote places on earth. Loading up about 30 people, dogs, goats and children, they caravan up to Thirtymile and the reality of their new life slowly, bit by bit, begins to dawn on them. They now have to confront shirkers who don’t help. They now have to work tirelessly to establish a food cache and shelter before the 60 below winter sets in. In a flash, gone are the days of tri

GHACHAR GHOCHAR by Vivek Shanbhag   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2017, LA Times Finalist 2017   Date Read: March 2, 2023   This is a classic rags-to-riches story set in India. A very close family, living in just about squalor makes a huge gamble in investing all of the father’s retirement money in a spice business. The family’s fortunes change almost overnight. They are able to leave behind their ant-infested hovel and move to, what in their eyes, is a palace with a gas stove.   When this happens, the family that was once close-knit begins to fray. The daughter marries but when she clashes with her mother-in-law, casts the marriage aside and hires brutes to help her retrieve her wedding jewelry. The son also marries Anita, who causes conflict between him and his mother. She also introduces her son to a saying that she made with her brother in childhood – Ghachar Ghochar. This means when something is tangled beyond repair.   This is ultimately what happens to this family as the wealth t

THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT by Jose Donoso   Award: PEN/Translation Winner 1974   Date Read: March 1, 2023   For me, The Obscene Bird Of Night was an odyssey of the bizarre, fantastic, and grotesque all rolled into one. By turns, this novel is fascinating and horrific, with very little sentiment or tenderness. Donoso plays with the boundaries of the human life cycle and bodily autonomy, particularly what it’s like when one loses all agency of their own physical being.   Donoso relies on the myth of the imbunche, a mythic figure that (and I rely on the professionals for this explanation) “… is a grotesquely disfigured being that has been sutured, tied, bound and wrapped from birth. Its orifices are sewn shut, its tongue is removed or split, its extremities and sexual organ bound and immobilized. It is the product of magic and witchcraft. It is the incarnation of the very realistic fears we feel as children, when monsters, magic and imaginings all seem real – they are the deeply rooted fea