A Word About Awards

THE DISCOMFORT OF EVENING by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld   Award: Booker International Winner 2020   Date Read: November 2, 2023   Four siblings are growing up in a rural village in the Netherlands by fundamentalist parents who push the word of God above affection. As each of them come of age in their own way, the eldest, Matthies, drowns when he falls through the ice while skating with friends. The aftermath of this devastating loss is devastating on its own.   Told through the perspective of Jas, the eldest girl, she is trying her best to make sense of this tragedy and the best she can come up with are the plagues in the Bible. The family loses all of their cows, their main cash crop, to hoof and mouth disease. They have an invasion of frogs. They have lost their eldest son. How could this not be a punishment for sin?   Jas has enshrouded herself in her red jacket and is slowly collecting things in its pockets – wrappers, whiskers, a cheese scoop. She wears her co...

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 ...

DISGRACE by J.M. Coetzee   Awards: Booker Award 1999, Nobel Winner 1999   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2001, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 1999, NY Times Finalist 1999   Read Date: January 8, 2023   An older, twice-divorced professor living in South Africa finds himself embroiled in a scandal. Dr. David Lurie, by no means past his prime, has randomly found himself besotted with one of his students. His downfall? She makes herself available to him, never saying no. Then again, she never seems to enjoy their brief encounters and basically endures all of their liaisons. I never understood why she would go along with this unless she felt her academic future was in jeopardy if she didn’t comply?   Regardless, Coetzee has created another masterpiece here, diverting readers with this preliminary affair. After the student files a complaint with the university, David’s secret is laid bare for all his colleagues to dissect. In disgrace (hence the title), he resign...

AT NIGHT ALL BLOOD IS BLACK by David Diop   Nominations: Booker International Winner 2021, Dublin Finalist 2022, LA Times Winner 2020   Date Read: July 6, 2022   Alfa, a rifleman in the Senegalese army fighting in WWI, lets down his best friend and practical brother by failing to kill him. Mademba Diop has been Alfa’s friend since childhood and Alfa followed Mademba into war so that they could remain together. But when Mademba is shot and his intestines are outside his body, Alfa cannot bring himself to kill Mademba, although he begs repeatedly for Alfa to put him out of his misery.   Losing his grip on reality a little, Alfa attempts to atone for failing his friend by killing the enemy, gutting them like Mademba was and chopping off their hands as a remembrance. At first, those in Alfa’s camp find the hands brave, then strange, then crazy. At Alfa’s 7 th  hand brought back to camp, he is sent to the rear for rest and, hopefully, recovery of his sanity.   H...

AMSTERDAM by Ian McEwan   Award: Booker Winner 1998   Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2000   Date Read: June 30, 2022   As with much of McEwan’s work, Amsterdam is a dark tale of moral ambiguity. The line between right and wrong is often unclear and who better to embody that than two long-time friends. Clive and Vernon find themselves at the funeral of their ex-lover, Molly, who succumbed to an illness in a brief amount of time. Rather than view each other as ex-rivals, Clive and Vernon view one another as long-term friends.   George, Molly husband at the time of her death, stumbles on some damaging photos of another of her ex-lovers, a well-known right-wing politician on the rise (Molly got around. Damn, girl!). The photos show this politician in drag, looking at-ease in this persona, implying that perhaps this indulgence wasn’t a one-off.    Vernon is an editor at a paper on the decline. Readership is down. Their pool of stories are drying up and uninspi...

THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by Arundhati Roy   Award: Booker Winner 1997   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 1999, LA Times Finalist 1997   Date Read: November 13, 2003 & April 28, 2022   The God Of Small Things is a fascinating book about relative privilege, the meaning of the caste structure in India, worker’s rights and love that knows no bounds. Seen primarily through the eyes of fraternal twins Rahel and Estha, readers are a witness to this families undoing. Some within the family are happy to see the upheaval, such as Baby Kochamma, while others are victims of circumstance.   Rahel and Estha’s family are considerably well-off by India standards. They own a pickle factory and rubber estate that provides a generous living. They also employ a number of local people, including some that are Untouchable, the lowest caste in Indian society. In particular, Velutha is an Untouchable, yet loved dearly by the twins and, over time Ammu, the twins’ mother. Of course, Ammu ...

RITES OF PASSAGE by William Golding   Awards: Booker Winner 1980, Nobel Winner 1980   Date Read: April 2, 2022   Imagine being trapped in a floating cesspool for months with nothing to occupy your time but a handful of the same books and the other passengers. In Rites Of Passage, you don’t have to imagine. Golding has painted that all too vivid picture for us.  Through Edmund Talbot, an up-and-comer whose godfather has bestowed a position of privilege on, we can see the operation of a very old ship and the drama of his fellow passengers, one of whom comes to a tragic end, partially at his own hand.   Reverend Colley is also aboard and from the instant, everyone sees a single-minded, gullible man. This weakness is exploited for the pure amusement of the other passengers and crew and results in his tragic death. The reader becomes privy to the inner-workings of Colley that reveal a gentle and earnest soul that is continually striving to do the Lord’s work. Yet, th...

MOON TIGER by Penelope Lively   Award: Booker Winner 1987   Nomination: LA Times Finalist 1988   Date Read: February 12, 2022   Claudia Hampton is dying. And in one of the most beautiful books I’ve read in a while, Lively explores the life she lived, the love she gave and the shortcomings of her existence. Treating her with a tenderness and mercy that we all hope will someday apply to us, Lively gives breath to a flawed creature that simply did her best in the circumstances she found herself in.   “We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse; we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard. More than that, we speak volumes – our language is the language of everything we have not read.”   Claudia and Gordon, her brother, are rivals from the very beginning. Always trying to outdo on...

TROUBLES by J.G. Farrell   Award: Booker Winner 1970   Date Read: January 3, 2022   While Ireland falls around their ears, the occupants of the Majestic are in a similar bind. The Majestic once lived up to its name but has become in dangerous disrepair after its new owner, Edward and children, purchased the building some years back. The description of this hotel’s magnificence – 300 rooms, ballrooms, tennis courts, swimming pools, game rooms, etc. – conjure a past of luxury and exclusivity. Not any more. Now, one is lucky to find clean sheets and not get struck by falling plaster.   This is the condition the Major finds when he checks into the Majestic to visit his fiancé, Angela, one of Edward’s daughters. The Major doesn’t recall proposing but in their exchange of letters, Angela would sign off as “Your Fiance,” so the Major assumed they were engaged. He arrives with the intent of breaking things off so he can move on to Italy, however, once he crosses the Majestic...

SHUGGIE BAIN by Douglas Stuart   Award: Booker Winner 2020   Nominations: BookTube Finalist 2021, Carnegie Longlist 2021, Center For Fiction Finalist 2020, Dayton Literary Peace Finalist 2021, Kirkus Finalist 2020, LA Times Finalist 2020, National Book Finalist 2020, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2020, PEN/Hemingway Finalist 2021, Rathbones Folio Longlist 2021    Date Read: September 11, 2021   Shuggie Bain is a heartbreaking novel about a child growing up in Scotland with a raging alcoholic as a mother. Shuggie’s father is long-gone and there is no one really to rescue him from the daily uncertainties an alcoholic can create, including his two siblings. Caroline has fled through marriage to South Africa. Leek was thrown out of the house in one of Agnes’ drunken rages, leaving Shuggie to care for his mother and take on tasks far above his years. In fact, Shuggie never had a childhood. All his years, his mother has come first.   Shuggie’s problems ar...

THE WHITE TIGER by Aravind Adiga   Award: Booker Winner 2008   Dates Read: July 14, 2010 & September 7, 2021   What readers can learn from this novel is that the level of corruption in India is staggering and there’s not much people wouldn’t do to get ahead. One example: The village school teacher steals their lunch and uniform money but perceived by the kids as justified since he hadn’t been paid in 6 months. India seems like a country where all the morals and values the West believes in go completely out the window. I know that’s a gross generalization but you have to believe that most of the shenanigans described in The White Tiger actually happen.   Everyone is so focused on survival that there is no time to consider kindness, or to contemplate if one is being a good person. Everyone’s nose is so pushed to the grindstone, not much else matters. The bus driver from Balram’s village is envied for his uniform, whistle, and regular paycheck. The kids in the villa...

THE GATHERING by Anne Enright   Award: Booker Winner 2007   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2009, Women's Prize Longlist 2008   Date Read: August 1, 2021   My second encounter with Enright and I am just as delighted, even if the content is somber and somewhat ambiguous. In The Gathering, Enright explores family connectedness, family obligations and the unreliability of memory. Rather than reading like a plot-driven novel, The Gathering is more of an exploration or meditation on these topics.   Veronica, our narrator, comes from a large Catholic family (12 children and 7 miscarriages – I can’t even imagine) and along with all these personalities comes varying degrees of closeness and understanding. Veronica is closest with her brother Liam, who has always been a troubled soul and suffering from depression. Liam, unable to bear the burden any longer, drowns himself in the sea. This loss is the undoing of Veronica’s life, as up until this point she has been teetering ...

SAVILLE by David Storey   Award: Booker Winner 1976   Date Read: May 22, 2021   In the beginning of the odyssey of Colin’s life, my heart goes out to him, a lad who never quite manages to be a kid. He has tremendous responsibility, is driven incredibly hard by his parents, Masters at school and even performs manual labor during break at the tender age of 11 to assist with household expenses. He watches over his younger brothers and helps with household chores. What more can a child do? My son is 12 and I cannot imagine him doing half of this, although he certainly would if the economic circumstances required it.    From the outset, Colin’s parent’s hopes have landed on his shoulders and he is the one that will transcend their lowly economic position. He is their golden child, the one that will prove all their sacrifice worthwhile. And so he is pushed academically and ultimately succeeds in passing his exams and landing a coveted spot at one of the premier public...

VERNON GOD LITTLE by D.B.C. Pierre   Award: Booker Winner 2003   Date Read: December 2, 2020   I didn’t know much about this Booker Winner before picking it up and I was slayed by the irreverence of Vernon, the cluster fuck he finds himself in and the mass-murder as entertainment angle brought about by Lally. Vernon’s voice throughout is clearly that of a teen as he navigates surreal situations most adults aren’t equipped to handle. His mother, Doris, is absorbed by her own life and relinquished the role of parent long ago.   The appearance of Lally in the Little’s life is clearly a turning point for the worse and serves to heighten the culpability of Vernon in bringing about the demise of his classmates. Lally appears out of nowhere and positions himself as uniquely qualified to follow Vernon’s case and how it affects the people of Martirio as they seek justice. What everyone but Vernon doesn’t know is Lally is a TV repairman who is trying to break into broadcasting...

OFFSHORE by Penelope Fitzgerald   Award: Booker Winner 1979   Date Read: November 27, 2020   Offshore is a brief glimpse into a community of houseboats that are moored on the Thames. While surrounded by greater London, these boats are a microcosm of the dramas and challenges happening all around them. As the name implies, the characters presented here, particularly Nenna, Richard, Maurice and Willis are in some way distant and offshore from their lives and relationships.   This entire novella metaphorically mirrors the unreachability of these characters. Nenna is living alone with her two daughters, while she waits for her husband Edward to have a change of heart and join her on the houseboat she purchased without his input. Edward, for his part, is waiting for Nenna to come to her senses and join him on dry land. In the end, it appears Edward is willing to make a compromise but that conclusion is left dangling.   Perhaps more interesting is how the dwellers of ...

THE FAMISHED ROAD by Ben Okri   Award: Booker Winner 1991   Date Read: September 19, 2020   I wanted so very much to enjoy this book but I found all 511 pages excruciating. I tend to actually like Magical Realism but for some reason, page after page, humans kept turning into animals or spirits, Azaro’s father is unhinged (yet again), and, wait for it, there’s yet another riot or party gone out of control.    After the first few pages, I was enthralled as Okri described Azaro in the spirit world and how difficult it is to agree to become incarnate. Trust me, I understand. This world is full of pain, injustice, despair, hate. But there is also beauty and love and moments of magnificence that make it all worthwhile.   I found the way the people here treated one another, particularly children appalling. Rarely did these characters offer each other compassion or even basic love. There wasn’t much for me to embrace and perhaps that’s the biggest problem. I want t...

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS by Marlon James Award: Booker Winner 2015 Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2015, Dublin Finalist 2016, National Book Critic Circle Finalist 2014, PEN/Open Book Longlist 2015 Date Read: May 15, 2020 "What don't go so, go near so."  And so begins this tome by Marlon James. This expression is explained later in the book that any story told, if not exactly true is probably nearly true.  James takes on a lot of Jamaican political history and gang warfare here, exploring the political struggles over Jamaica's slums, the ensuing drug wars that spilled over into the U.S. and the personal struggles of those trying to create new lives for themselves whether out of fear or a desire to improve their life circumstances. Often violent, depressingly hopeless at times, A Brief History is, without a doubt, an impressive achievement. So many characters are presented that James provides a handy character list at the beginning. I can't h...

THE ELECTED MEMBER by Bernice Rubens Award: Booker 1970 Date Read: July 10, 2019 The Elected Member chronicles a pivotal time in the Zweck family, devout Jews who love each other deeply but have almost irretrievably  messed up their relationships. Norman, in particular, is the center of this tale as his drug addiction results in paranoia and hallucinations. Norman's siblings are equally challenged. Bella is unmarried, living at home and beholden to her father and brother, frozen in time and space and still wearing her childhood ankle socks. Esther, at one time the golden daughter, is estranged for her choice and manner of marriage. As Norman is sent to a psychiatric hospital again, events from the past come rushing into the present and the Zweck family is forced to confront themselves and their role in the family's deterioration. While Rabbi Zweck, the pater familias, would prefer Norman get well and everything return to exactly as it was, clearly this is impossible...