A Word About Awards

A FROLIC OF HIS OWN by William Gaddis   Award: National Book Winner 1994   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 1996, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 1994, NY Times Finalist 1994   Date Read: April 28, 2023   In A Frolic Of His Own, Gaddis plays with the idea of art vs. money, as well as the law vs. justice. Oscar, a buffoon and a recluse, believes the legal system is his recourse for a car accident he had where his own car ran him over. He has also written a play about the Civil War that he believes has been stolen to use as the basis for a Hollywood epic. He is suing about that as well. While the accident lawsuit isn’t successful because he’s the claimant and the defendant, his lawsuit against the Hollywood producer is successful. But at what cost?   Hobbling around in his Appellate Court Justice father’s dilapidated estate, Oscar goes on rants and drinking binges while bemoaning his lot in life. Christina, his stepsister, ping-pongs between assuaging Oscar’s tirades and trying to spen

WEATHER by Jenny Offill   Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2021, Women’s Prize Finalist 2020   Date Read: April 26, 2023   Weather isn’t so much a novel as a series of vignettes that fit together to form a narrative about a woman struggling with career, marriage, motherhood and a brother who is struggling with addiction. Lizzie is intelligent, observant and most definitely not a librarian, a job for which she is grateful but is judged by her coworkers because she doesn’t have a degree in library science. Being less immersed in the library world than her peers, she is an amateur psychologist, delving into people’s psyches in her spare time.   In addition to her husband and son, Lizzie’s brother, Henry, is a recovering drug addict. He has recently fallen in love with Katherine and after losing his own apartment, they move in together. After heading down the road of matrimony and parenthood, Henry begins to overreact to the pressures of fatherhood and begins using again to alleviate his suf

GHOST WALL by Sarah Moss   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2020, Women’s Prize Longlist 2019   Date Read: April 19, 2023   What happens when you mix an experimental archaeology college group on their hands-on part of the course with a family led by an abusive father of a wife and daughter with an obsession for primitive living? You get Ghost Wall, a terrifying portrayal of what happens when a girl has no one to stand up for her.   Sylvie is of high school age when her father drags her and her mother on an expedition to live as the pre-historic bog people lived in the Scottish moors. Not exactly Sylvie and her mother’s idea of a good time. This experience is occurring alongside a college class that is required to do this as part of their course credit. Sylvie’s family is doing it “just for fun.”   This is no ordinary camping trip, however. The dad insists everything be as historically accurate as possible and Sylvie and her mom had to beg for bras and underwear and wooden bowls to eat out

THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy   Award: National Book Winner 1962   Date Read: April 17, 2023   The Moviegoer is defined by its central character’s existential angst and his search for meaning and a better understanding of his relationship with God. Jack Bolling (aka Binx) finds himself still in search of his purpose at the age of 30. Having lost several years in the war and many more years to making money at a brokerage, he still knows he hasn’t found his true path in life.   His ultimate enemy is the mendacity of everyday life or “the grind.” He attempts to escape this despair by frequenting movies in his spare time, enjoying a succession of women without committing to any of them, even trading up his car to a more fun and less practical MG. While Binx struggles with this particular demon, he doesn’t share his fear with anyone but his cousin Kate.   Kate has her own demons to fight. She has been mentally unwell for many years, is struggling with an addiction to painkillers and has rec

A WHOLE LIFE by Robert Seethaler   Nominations: Booker Finalist 2016, Dublin Finalist 2017   Date Read: April 16, 2023   In this quiet novella whose quietness and simplicity reminds me of Tinkers, a simple life is lived thoroughly and left replete. Although Andreas Eggers lives in a quiet, remote village, the remarkable events of the 20 th  century inevitably find their way to his doorstep, leaving their indelible impression.   In the early 1900s, Andreas is an orphan who is brought to a mountain village and is left with a farmer and his family. Andreas works like a horse and is beaten regularly, but manages to endure until he is 18 and can leave, limping from one particularly bad beating that will remain with him throughout his life.    Andreas has learned the principle of hard work and no job is beneath him. He farms, helps construct a mountain tram, and years pass. He falls in love with Marie who is quickly taken from him in an avalanche. The war comes and he is pressed into service

MY DARK VANESSA by Kate Elizabeth Russell   Nominations: BookTube Finalist 2021, Center For Fiction Longlist 2020, Goodreads Finalist 2020   Date Read: April 14, 2023   Wow. Just wow. Russell explores the complicated relationship of a teenager preyed upon by a teacher – the grooming, the desire, the guilt, the confusion – all twisted together into a complicated and ugly reality. Russell walks this crooked line so well, conveying how devastating this type of relationship can be for a teenage girl unsure of her own power and place in the world. As is so often the case, the attention from an authority figure is like a drug, both exciting and abhorrent.   Strane is an English teacher at a boarding school. He instantly zeroes in on Veronica and slowly begins grooming her, making the smallest and subtlest of gestures to make her wonder if he is attracted to her. As their relationship quickly progresses, he rests his head in her lap and confesses he is going to ruin her. And that is indeed wh

LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie Garmus   Award: Goodreads Winner 2022   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2023   Date Read: April 11, 2023   This a very unique novel, just as its heroine, Elizabeth Zott. Garmus brilliantly brings the worlds of chemistry, love, feminism, cooking shows and pet ownership into a beautiful salad bowl and tosses. What comes out is an empowering and hopeful novel about the bonds of family.   Elizabeth Zott is struggling to find her way through the male-dominated chemistry world. Clearly gifted and brilliant, she lacks the one, most important component: no, not a B.S. – a penis. In the 1960s, women in science were just about unheard of and no one took them seriously. Elizabeth has endured sexual assault, humiliation, demeaning job duties and a general lack of respect, yet she’s determined to remain true to her life love: chemistry.   Winding up at the Hastings Institute, she meets and (despite her stealing his beakers and him barfing on her) falls in love with Calvin

HOLIDAY by Stanley Middleton   Award: Booker Winner 1974   Date Read: April 7, 2023   Although Holiday is sparse on plot, the inner-workings of Edwin Fisher’s mind are non-stop as he explores the years he has spent with his wife, Meg. Fisher finds himself on vacation, but not necessarily in a place he would have chosen under normal circumstances. He is in Bealthorpe because this is the town his parents took him to as a child during family vacations.   Edwin is alone having left his wife. Their future as a married couple is still uncertain and he is unsure if there is enough of a marriage to return to. As Edwin reminisces about their first meeting, subsequent dates and the early years of their marriage, he recognizes the mistakes they have both made. What also stands out is Meg’s unhinged behavior over the years. She would often resort to histrionics when something happened of which she didn’t approve. But worst of all for any couple is the loss of a child. Edwin and Irene lost their on

DODGERS by Bill Beverly   Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2017, Center For Fiction Longlist 2017, LA Times Finalist 2016, PEN/Hemingway Finalist 2017   Date Read: April 2, 2023   Dodgers is not quite a coming-of-age story, not quite a road trip adventure, and not quite any eye opening for inner-city street kids. While all three of those components come into play here, Dodgers is all those plot points, yet none of those plot points. Told through the vantage of Easy, a 16-year old kid from inner city Los Angeles, Easy has been working the streets as a drug lookout since he was 10. He has slowly worked his way up until he managed the outside team of lookouts for a high-volume drug house.   One slightly strange day, his world came crumbling down when the police raided the house and the early and a neighborhood girl who was visiting from Jackson was killed right in front of her. Easy is haunted by her memory. Although Easy has been living on the streets for most of his life, he still has a r