Legends of the North Cascades by Jonathan Evison

 

Trauma destroys the lives of those who have lived through devastating events but it also impacts the lives of the people around the trauma victim. 

Legends of the North Cascades tells the story of two beings whose trauma leads them to isolate from society, each with a child they determine to protect. But isolating from society does not bring healing, and their post traumatic disorder worsens.

Dave hoped for a football scholarship but it eluded him; with few choices he enlisted in the Marines. He knew that on the field he was a determined, hard worker, a quick thinker whose insight made up for his slender size. He loved his country and he wanted to travel and to make a difference.

But after three tours in Iraq, Dave had lost his illusions. He returned home psychologically damaged to struggle on his own. His marriage floundered. They thought a child could change things, and during pregnancy they did join in expectation and joy. With Bella's birth, their problems worsened.

When his wife suddenly dies, Dave decides to take Bella to live in the North Cascades. He owed money and was going to lose the house. It was time to give up fitting into 'normal.' He and Bella would live off the land where they would be safe from the human world.

At first, Bella was happy and Dave was well organized and directed. Bella resisted attempts to bring her back into town. But over time, Dave's mental health deteriorated and Bella grapples with estrangement and loneliness.

Thousands of years before Dave and Bella came to the North Cascades, S'tka refused to join her clan when they migrate into the unknown lands beyond the mountains. As a female, she had suffered under male power, allowed to starve while pregnant and raped. She gives birth to N'ka and does everything she could to protect him. But her son grew up and pushed to find others, to expand his world. His mother insisted that others brought pain and put their lives at risk.

Jonathan Evison uses the two timelines to illustrate the universality of human experience, the worst and the best of society, and the damage we inflict on others. 

The children show great bravery and openness to finding the good in the world. 

Evison has written,

I believe in the power of stories to transform. I still think the novel is the greatest empathic window ever devised by humankind, and I think it would be a better world if everybody read at least one novel per week. Way better than if they watched Mad Men. Or played Farmville. I have one theme: reinvention. I believe people can change. I believe most people want to. I believe in forgiveness, forbearance, generosity, and humor in the face adversity. (https://s3.amazonaws.com/algonquin.site.features/revisedfundamentals/about-jonathan-evison.html)

Legends of the North Cascade offers unforgettable characters and a transformative story that will wring your heart and mend it again.

I received an advanced reading copy from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.

Legends of the North Cascades
by Jonathan Evison
Algonquin Books
Pub Date  June 8, 2021 
ISBN: 9781643750101
hardcover 26.95 (USD)

from the publisher

Dave Cartwright used to be good at a lot of things: good with his hands, good at solving problems, good at staying calm in a crisis. But on the heels of his third tour in Iraq, the fabric of Dave’s life has begun to unravel. Gripped by PTSD, he finds himself losing his home, his wife, his direction. Most days, his love for his seven-year-old daughter, Bella, is the only thing keeping him going. When tragedy strikes, Dave makes a dramatic decision: the two of them will flee their damaged lives, heading off the grid to live in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.

As they carve out a home in a cave in that harsh, breathtaking landscape, echoes of its past begin to reach them. Bella retreats into herself, absorbed by visions of a mother and son who lived in the cave thousands of years earlier, at the end of the last ice age. Back in town, Dave and Bella themselves are rapidly becoming the stuff of legend—to all but those who would force them to return home. 

As winter sweeps toward the North Cascades, past and present intertwine into a timeless odyssey. Poignant and profound, Legends of the North Cascades brings Jonathan Evison’s trademark vibrant, honest voice to bear on an expansive story that is at once a meditation on the perils of isolation and an exploration of the ways that connection can save us.

"A beautifully rendered and cinematic portrait of a place and its evolution through time . . . A story of survival and the love and devotion between parent and child.”—Jill McCorkle, author of Hieroglyphics 

The Brother Years by Shannon Burke

...it was at that great moment in adolescence where you throw off what you think you ought to be and start imposing your true personality on the world, a moment of grace and strength and beauty and danger. ~ from The Brother Years by Shannon Burke

My 50th high school class reunion was to take place next month but was cancelled because of COVID-19. One of my friends suggested the class post their photos from senior year on the class Facebook page.

I was the first to share, a panorama photo of the senior class trip to Washington D.C. Classmates shared pics from the trip, Senior prom, and the school musical.

Something happened along the way. One classmate talked about her memories of the Vietnam war and civil rights movement, the Detroit riots, the protest sit-ins.

People talked about how they were not in the popular group, were outsiders looking in. They talked about their life after high school. And then, a girl talked about the anxiety that crippled her most of her life, how she hid it in school. We had thought she was popular, pretty, a golden girl.

Suddenly the barriers were falling down. Social class, academic standing, beauty, achievement, popularity were revealed to be false delinations that separated us.

So, here I am in life looking backward to adolescence, those horrible, difficult, eventful years, and I pick up The Brother Years by Shannon Burke as if the stars had aligned to ensure I read this book at this time.

Burke writes about "the weird, poor family in the rich neighborhood' and how their childhood was a crucible that molds and toughens them. Central are brothers Coyle and Willie Shannon and the competition that makes Willie's life hell.

The boys' father strives for success, working multiple jobs and studying for a teaching degree. He works the sons as hard as he works himself, employing The Methods to toughen them for the world. The stress gives him a short temper and violent outbursts. Their mother is a housewife with a college degree who ineffectually tries to keep the peace.

Coyle's academic and sports achievements were a testament to his father's Methods. But there was always the awareness of being the poorest family in the rich 'hood.

...there was that familiar feeling of knowing there was something wrong with us--with our clothes or haircuts of the way we talked. ~from The Brother Years by Shannon Burke

Coyle's antithesis is the wealthy Robert. Willie aligns with Robert in his bid to get on the tennis team. Coyle accuses his brother of being a suck-up. Robert and Willie use each other for their own purposes. If that pisses Coyle off, so much the better.

Memories of a friendship with a rich friend came back. Dad was a blue collar worker and mom a housewife. We had what we needed, but my clothes were from KMart and our special eating out treat was buying 15 cent burgers from a local chain. At fourteen, I wore mom's hand-me-down swing coat and dated bathing suit with boy pants and a bra.

When I was a freshman, a girl took me up as a project, much like Emma took up Harriet in Jane Austen's novel. My friend was wealthy, had been to Europe, and lived in a posh house  that her father had designed. Her parents had college degrees. She encouraged me to lose weight, flirt with boys, and become 'cool.' At least, cooler. In the summer I went to her house to swim in her built-in pool. Mom bought me a new swimsuit to wear.

One day this friend told me her mother thought I was not the right sort for her because of our economic status. I don't know if her mom really said that or if it was the start of my friend pushing me away because she soon took up another 'project.'

The energy it takes to rise above one's born class! It takes the Brennan dad years to get that degree. The boys had to be the best in everything to get into a top-notch college and to get the needed scholarships to afford it. Their childhood was brutal, the competition violent.

I was immersed in the story and the characters. The Brennan family is unforgettable.

Burke has given us a powerful coming-of-age novel, a story of class divide and what it takes to achieve the proverbial pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read an excerpt here.

from the publisher

"In our family, there was none of this crap about everyone being a winner," says Willie, the narrator, who looks back on his teen years--and his nearly mortal combat with his domineering older brother, Coyle. In the Brennan house four kids sleep in a single room, and are indoctrinated into "The Methods," a system of achievement and relentless striving, laced with a potent, sometimes violent version of sibling rivalry. The family is overseen by a raging bull of a father, a South Side tough guy who knocks them sideways when they don't perform well or follow his dictates. Rivals, enemies, and allies, the siblings contend with one another and their wealthy self-satisfied peers at New Trier, the famous upscale high school where the family has struggled to send them. Evoking their crucible of class struggle and peer pressures, Burke balances comedy, tragedy, and a fascinating cast of characters, delivering a book that reads like an instant classic--an unforgettable story of the intertwining of love and family violence, and of triumphant teen survival that echoes down through the years.

The Brother Years
by Shannon Burke
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group/Pantheon
Pub Date August 4, 2020
ISBN: 9781524748647
hardcover $25.95 (USD)

Night.Sleep.Death.The Stars. by Joyce Carol Oates

An 800 page book doesn't scare me. Some of my favorite books are whoppers.

The number of pages are irrelevant when one becomes immersed in detailed characters, propelled by foreshadowing through their actions and weaknesses, touched by universal truths of human nature.

Oates latest novel explores the impact of death on a family.
I was sucked into the story, eagerly looking forward to reading and learning more about these characters. To discover if I was right about what would come.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. begins with the sudden death of a family patriarch. Whitey stopped to investigate what appeared, and was, a case of police profiling and brutality. He was their next victim. He did not survive.

Whitey was 67---my age. He was his wife Jessalyn's reason for existence, her lodestone; he defined her. In deep shock, she plummets into a private despair hidden behind her self-effacing thoughtfulness for others.

The children, as children do, decide what must be done, how their mother should 'be', and when her actions do not conform with expectations, they reel off into obsessions and fears and anger.

The family balance is thrown off. The children carry their individual burdens. Some believed they were 'favorite' sons or daughters, while others strove to gain their father's approval. One had given up trying.

After many months, a man enters Jessalyn's life who takes her under his care. She rejects his attentions in horror, but allows him to slowly change her, alter her, and bring her back into the land of the living.

The children are incensed, complain to each other, demand someone do something. Mom has been acting incorrectly. Mom has chosen the wrong man. Mom has a feral cat in the house.

Oh, I have seen this! The children who resent the second spouse. I myself scared off a woman who had set her sights on my newly widowed father! Yes, I did!

I was increasingly horrified as the novel got darker and darker, delving into the black hearts of these children. They are murderers and self-abusers and suicidal misfits and long-suffering, angry wives.

Each sibling must find their way out of their despair and illness. I expected Jessalyn to change into a 'modern heroine', evolving into her own woman. To leave passivity behind. She finds happiness, but not growth.

This story disturbed my sleep. It was an emotional journey.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.
by Joyce Carol Oates
HarperCollins Publishers/ Ecco
Publication Date June, 9 2020 
ISBN: 9780062797582
hardcover $35.00 (USD)

from the publisher: 

The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society by one of our most enduringly popular and important writers.

Night Sleep Death The Stars is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: when a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. 

Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s bestselling We Were the Mulvaneys.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Glowing reviews of Ann Patchett's newest novel The Dutch House impelled me to snatch it up as soon as it appeared on the new release shelf at the public library.

The story of siblings Maeve and Danny Conroy whose mother disappears and is replaced by an evil stepmother is like a fairy tale, especially when after their father's death their stepmom exiles them from their home to fend for themselves. The abandoned children, like Hanzel and Gretel, have only each other.

The story of family trauma and the inability to move on resolves into a kind of Howard's End moment, and it all centers on the Dutch House. The house is what divided the family. There are those who belong to the house, those who lust for it, those who love it, and those who desire it. Who controls the house is central to the novel.

The Dutch House is a historic mansion in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, built in 1922 as a country refuge for a wealthy Dutch family. WWII veteran Cyril Conroy was a frustrated architect who became a real estate tycoon. He bought the Dutch House and all its contents, planning to surprise his wife Elna.

Elna was unable to accept a life of leisure, living in a mansion. Cyril had pulled her from a convent to be his wife, dividing her from the vocation that kept calling her back. Elna had to make a choice. It wasn't Cyril and her family.

Andrea wanted the house, and married Cyril for the house--and Cyril married Andrea because she loved it as much as he did. The siblings bond with Andrea's young children. Andrea begins the process of disenfranchising Cyril's children, appropriating Maeve's bedroom for her own daughter.

Upon Cyril's early death, the children learn that their father left Andrea his business, house, and money. Andrea proclaims that she never signed on to raise Danny and sends him to live with his Maeve.

There are a few times in life when we leap up and the past you'd been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you're suspended, knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself.~fron The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Cyril left a trust fund for the children's education as well as Andrea's daughter's education. Maeve had already finished college and was ineligible, so she encouraged Danny to use up as much of the money as possible, attending private school and then going to medical school. Danny had dreamt of taking over his father's business; he loved repairing the buildings and the tenants. Maeve had planned on grad school but now had to support herself.

The siblings held their anger and resentment close, a deep bond between them.

We'd made a fetish out of our misfortune, fallen in love with it.~from The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Danny asks his sister, what kind of person leaves their kids? And Maeve replies,
"Men! Men leave their children all the time and the world celebrates them for it. The Buddha left and Odysseus left and no none gave a shit about their sons. They set out on their noble journeys to do whatever the hell they wanted to do and thousands of years later we're still singing about it."

Each character in the book, including the caretaker's daughter who became Danny's nanny and the housemaid and cook, has a relationship to the Dutch House. It is the house that bonds them.

I connected with the characters' attachment to a house; after moving as a girl, for years I hoped to grow up and be able to retrieve my first home for myself. I also appreciated how Elna's vocation disrupted her family life; I have seen several clergy marriages crushed by the conflict of family vs. pastoral obligations. And--for seven years we lived near Elkins Park, our son born in the hospital there.

Patchett has given us another fantastic book, filled with memorable characters.

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay

"We can only handle so much truth at any given moment, I suppose."~Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay

The world too often is quiet about things that should set off alarms.

Horrible things happen. Articles, buried deep in the newspaper, or a flash of video and a few spoken words on the screen, mention countries we don't know and perhaps don't care about. The people and their suffering are real but they are 'other', foreign, from countries where dictators rule or rival factions destroy, while we are cocooned in comfortable homes and easy lives.

Until it gets personal. Then the news is a clarion bell to wake us.

The Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay wants to wake us to the realities of life under a dictatorship that placates citizens with free birth control while suppressing journalism and truth, through his profoundly moving and beautifully written novel.

With early acceptance to the University of Michigan, Jay can coast through the rest of his senior year. But learning that his cousin Jun in the Philippines was shot by the police as a drug dealer turns Jay's life upside down.

Jay visited his father's Filipino family when he was ten. He and Jun became fast friends and were pen pals for years until Jay's teenage activities and concerns took precedence and he stopped responding to Jun's letters.

Racked with guilt, Jay wants answers. Jun was a good person. What happened that caused Jun to run away from his home? He wouldn't have done drugs. Why was Jun murdered? Why won't anyone tell him the truth?

Jay becomes obsessed, learning all he can about the Philipines and life under President Duterte. Determined to find answers, Jay proposes a trip to visit his Filipino family and learn about his heritage.

Staying with his father's siblings' families, Jay comes to understand that people are not always who we think they are and how growing up and learning the truth engenders more questions than answers.

Although YA fiction, Ribay's novel will speak to all readers. He is a master of his craft.

I received a book from the publisher through Bookish First. My review is fair and unbiased.

Sometimes I feel like growing up is slowly peeling back these layers of lies."~Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay

Patron Saints of Nothing
by Randy Ribay
Kokila/PenguinTeen
$17.99 hardcover
Jun 18, 2019
ISBN 9780525554912

The Vexations by Caitlin Horrocks

On February 18, 2018, we attended the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's French Festival to hear Claude Debussy's orchestration of Erik Satie's Gymnopédies Nos.1 & 3 along with music by Dukas, Saint-Saens, and Offenbach.

I had not realized previously how much I loved French music! I wanted to attend every one of the concerts. The two Gymnopedies were the only music by Satie performed during the festival--only because Debussy had orchestrated them. The music Satie wrote before he was twenty-two-years-old is his best known.  Reading Caitlin Horrocks' debut novel The Vexations I realized how little I knew about French composers and La Belle Époque Paris.

The Vexations centers on the life of the composer Erik Satie (1866-1925), bringing to life Paris's Bohemian society of eccentric and cutting-edge artists.

The novel also tells the story of Erik's siblings, separated as orphans after their mother's death. Conrad Satie leads a respectable life as a chemist in a perfume factory. Louise is a talented musician whose short-lived marriage leaves her and her son dependent on her in-law's wealth.

The Bohemian, a portrait of Erik Satie by Ramon Casas, circa 1891

Erik is a frustrating personality, an eccentric genius who would not be shoved into expected boxes artistically or socially. People didn't understand his music. His love affair with Susan Valadon lasted six months. He did not really seem to connect to people or need intimacy. During his life he was notorious. By the time of his death, his family and even most of his friends were no longer speaking with him.

Satie played piano at The Chat Noir

In later life, Satie was associated with Surrealism, including writing music for the Ballets Russe, Parade directed by Cocteau with Picasso costumes.

Erik Satie by Santiago Rusinol 

I became very taken by Louise Satie's story, the limitations society placed on a female. Pressured to marry well, she waited for passion. And when she found herself a young widow, one night of passion labeled her a whore. She clung to her son, but the legal system gave his custody to male relatives. She moved to South American and outlived the rest of her family, long enough to discover her brother Erik had become famous, long enough to understand life.

Satie's most well-known music remains the Gymnopieds.

The novel has left me with an earworm, sadness, and a better feel for the society and time that produced some of my favorite music.

After I finished the novel I discovered Horrocks is a writing instructor at Grand Valley State University. And that our son, who graduated from GVSU with a writing major, counted her as one of his best and most favorite professors!

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Vexations
by Caitlin Horrocks
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date 30 Jul 2019
ISBN 9780316316910
PRICE $28.00 (USD)

Hap & Hazard And the End of the World by Diane DeSanders

No one will tell me anything.~ from Hap and Hazard and the End of the World by Diane DeSanders

The world is a mystery to a child. Adults are the most mysterious of all.

I once wrote a poem about how I loved a child's "fragile questionings." I remembered that line while reading Hap & Hazard and the End of the World.

Most adults don't want to answer a child's questions, especially if the question threatens to upset the web of protection adults spin around a child. We tell them to believe in Santa Claus, in the Tooth Fairy, in the Easter Bunny--even when other children reveal they are not real.

I remember being horribly embarrassed when a Third-Grade boy explained that there is no Tooth Fairy. Too late--I had already shared the silver dollar I found under my pillow, proudly exclaiming it was from the Tooth Fairy. And I remember how our son pretended to believe in Santa Claus because it was expected.

The girl in this book pushes adults to tell her the truth. She desperately wants to understand the world and her life.

The book shares the loneliness of a girl who does not fit in."It seems there is something wrong with me," she cries out, "other people do not appear to be having this problem...other kids seem to know what to do and join in." What's wrong with me, she wonders. Oh, I remember feeling that way after a move when everything was so foreign, right down to the playground games.

When adults have problems, we think that ignorance protects the children. What is wrong with Daddy? the girl asks. He was off to war during her first years. He returns a bitter, angry man. How can her parents explain what they don't even understand themselves? The horror of war and the blasted bodies of comrades in arms, and the horrible pain of mutilation and the months of rebuilding what once was a strong and young body? Being crippled, self-medicating?

Set in the post-WWII years, so many things the girl observes were familiar. Vivid details of lipsticked cigarettes and willow trees, which were also in my childhood yard. Make-believe stories about The Girl recalling my own make-believe stories about being an orphan in Scotland or the star of the Nancy Show. The girl's mother retreats to her sewing room, a feeling I know well.

There is humor in the novel.

I recently realized that grown-ups don't know what you're doing if they're not looking at you. Although you have to watch out for the sides of their eyes. ~from Hap and Hazard at the End of the World by Diane DeSanders

And a horrible scene when an older boy abuses her trust and admiration.

There is a change in the universe. There are no more witches and goblins out there. There is no Blue Fairy. The world is plain and flat now, more gray, the mystery and brilliance gone out of it And all of the darkness is inside of me.~ from Hap and Hazard and the End of the World by Diane DeSanders

The novel left me with an ache.

I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Learn more about the author and book at
http://vol1brooklyn.com/2018/01/09/revisiting-the-post-war-moment-diane-desanders-on-writing-hap-and-hazard-and-the-end-of-the-world/
including the author reading from the novel at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9maS7Vn1hgs&feature=youtu.be

Haop & Hazard at the End of the World
by Diane DeSanders
Bellevue Literary Press
Ebook
ISBN: 9781942658375
Trade Paper
List Price US $16.99
ISBN: 9781942658368

The Editor by Steven Rowley

To write an autobiographical novel entails a great deal of risk. Because people know you are writing about your own life--fictionalized--inevitably bringing emotional turmoil into the lives of those people. And perhaps that is why James Smale can't bring his novel to a satisfying end--he is reluctant to go the distance because of the high costs.

Smale's editor believes in him, in his novel, and in the story he has yet to tell. He can't tell it yet, because he hasn't lived it. And his editor presses him to do the work.

Oh, Smale's editor at Doubleday is Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis. It makes things very complicated. Does he call her Mrs. Onassis? Jackie? Are they friends or coworkers or is she his boss or does she work for him? Everyone wants a part of her, all his friends are more interested in the minutia of her life than they are in his book.

As Smale agonizes over his manuscript and his relationship with his mother and the father who left her "because of" him, his relationship with his beloved Daniel comes under strain. Do they have a love for all time?

Everything Smale believed he knew comes crashing down at a family Thanksgiving gathering when his mother shares a secret.

The beginning of The Editor revolves around Smale's coming to grips with his discovery and the shock of being discovered by one of the most famous women in the world. As a mother, she is deeply interested in his book. As an editor, she pushes him into uncomfortable territory. And the novel takes a turn from the comic into the universal theme of a child trying to process their childhood and relationships with parents. The search for the mother, in Smale's case, becomes a discovery of the father.

Rowley's novel has already been signed to be a movie!

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

“Rowley deliberately mines the sentiment of the mother/son bond, but skillfully saves it from sentimentality; this is a winning dissection of family, forgiveness, and fame.”— PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)

The Editor
by Steven Rowley
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Pub Date 02 Apr 2019 
ISBN: 9780525537960
PRICE: $27.00 (USD)

Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss by Rajeev Balasubramanyam

Professor Chandra, soon to be seventy, has once again not won the Pulitzer Prize in Economics. His career was built on theories now unpopular--as unpopular as the Professor himself!

His kids won't talk with him, his ex married a male bimbo, his coworkers are sick of him. He has some nagging doubts about his whole life. Has he valued the wrong things?

Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss had me laughing out loud through the first half.  Chandra's struggles with the world and his family are presented with humor.

Chandra takes up the challenge of spending time "seeking his bliss" at Esalen. He takes in stride new experiences like meditation and nude hot tub conversations. He uses what he learns and tries to reconnect with his alienated children. All Chandra's problems don't disappear like magic, but what he learns and absorbs does bring him to a place where healing can begin to happen.

I enjoyed the novel and felt invested in Chandra and his family. But...Halfway through the book, I felt like there was a secret agenda. Like the author was proselytizing! Was the novel just one big sales pitch for a certain experience and lifestyle? The author, I discovered, practices Zen meditation.

Can we solve our issues with better self-talk, claiming responsibility for myself, opening up about my repressed feelings? Would spending time at a Zen monastery change our life? Do self-help gurus really help? Maybe. I mean, this is all very good advice. Maybe we all need a spiritual journey now and then. Reevaluate our goals and values.

So decide for yourself. If you are seeking a role model for change, Chandra might be your guy.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss
by Rajeev Balasubramanyam
The Dial Press
Pub Date 26 Mar 2019 
ISBN 9780525511380
PRICE $27.00 (USD)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rajeev Balasubramanyam was born in Lancashire and studied at Oxford, Cambridge, and Lancaster universities. He is the prize-winning author of In Beautiful Disguises. He has lived in London, Manchester, Suffolk, Kathmandu, and Hong Kong, where he was a Research Scholar in the Society of Scholars at Hong Kong University. He was a fellow of the Hemera Foundation, for writers with a meditation practice, and has been writer-in-residence at Crestone Zen Mountain Center and the Zen Center of New York City. His journalism and short fiction have appeared in The Washington Post, The Economist, New Statesman, London Review of Books, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, and many others. He currently lives and works in Berlin.

Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken

As a girl in the 1950s, I grew up watching my grandmother bowl. It came about like this:

The fire department burned down the house across the street from us, an early 19th c house like ours, one built by a founding family in the area. It was scheduled to be demolished and the volunteer fire department decided to burn it as a training exercise.

My parents and I watched from our second-floor windows as the house became enveloped in orange flames that lit our faces, the heat nearly too much to stand. My father recorded it all on the home movie camera, bought at my brother's birth, so I know it was around 1960 when the house was burned down.

In front of our house was the gas station built by my grandfather. What were they thinking of, starting a fire so close to gas pumps?

And on that newly vacated land, a bowling alley was built. My grandmother, who lived with us, joined a league and bowled with her lady friends. I would go with her to watch the games. I remember having to put on special shoes that always smelled funny. I recall the snack bar, the bright lights, the balls rolling back to us, and especially the noise of the balls knocking down the pins.

Once there was another kid at the alley with his grandmother. He talked about baseball the entire time. I don't know why I listened, I had no interest in Little League or baseball--or in even boys.

Reading Elizabeth McCracken's novel Bowlaway brought back those bowling alley memories. But the novel's bowling is of a different sort than the nine pin I grew up watching.

Our subject is love because our subject is bowling. Candlepin bowling. This is New England, and even the violence is cunning and subtle. It still could kill you. A candlepin ball is small, two and a half pounds, four and a half inches in diameter, a grapefruit, an operable tumor. You heft it in your palm.

Our subject is love. Unrequited love, you might think, the heedless headstrong ball that hurtles nearsighted down the alley to get close before it can pick out which pin it loves the most, the pin it longs to set spinning. Then I love you! Then Blammo.  

from Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken

There is it! In the first pages of the novel, the theme laid out for the observant reader to see. We become addicted to the very act that knocks us off our pins--Love--which can even kill us. Bowling as metaphor.

I loved this novel for the many lovely tricks of language and quirky descriptions.

Joe sat down on the bed and pulled the animal close, one of those accordion cats that got longer when you picked it up by the middle. from Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken

And how McCracken sums up things that knock you over with unexpected truthfullness--why didn't I think of that? you wonder.

But sorrow doesn't shape your life. It knocks the shape out. from Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken

McCracken tells us that this is a story about genealogy. We read about generations of the Truitt family and the people whose lives they touched.

Just before the turn of the century, a century ago, Bertha Truitt is discovered in a cemetery by Joe Wear, an orphan boy who works as a pin setter in a bowling alley.  Bertha is attended to by another visitor to the cemetery, Dr. Sprague, an African American doctor with a penchant for deep thought--and drink.

Bertha has arrived with a candlestick bowling ball and pin and a pile of gold. She builds a candlestick bowling alley, hires Joe, and marries the doctor. The local women come to bowl. Bertha builds an octagonal house for her and the doctor and their daughter Minna.

But tragedy strikes (pun intended) in the form of a molasses flood. The doctor sends Minna away to his people and he slowly lets grief consume him. First, he and Joe fashion a Bertha doll with carved candlepin appendages and a stuffed body.

Joe had hoped to inherit the bowling alley, as Bertha once promised. It is assumed that everything goes to Minna, but she never returns. When a Mr. Truitt comes along saying he is Bertha's heir, showing a family bible with the handwritten family births, he takes the alley over, banning females and marrying a local woman. Their children are yoked to the alley unwillingly.

When he was a young man the mysteries of the world seemed like generosity--you can think anything you want! Now the universe withheld things. from Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken

It is a story of revelations, sudden deaths, marriages, love, and how life slams lovers apart. The characters and plot may be Dickensian, but the truths are spot-on. As one character says, "Lady, lady. All sorts of things happen in this world. This is only one of them."

I purchased the book from the publisher.

Bowlaway
by Elizabeth McCracken
Ecco
ISBN: 9780062862853
ISBN 10: 0062862855
On Sale: 02/05/2019

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin is the moving story of the family bonds that both save us and tear us asunder. 

''...this is a story about the failures of love, and the Pause was the first." from The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

Fiona Skinner, 102 years old and a renowned poet, returns to the podium for the first time in twenty-five years. A girl arises from the audience with a question: Who was Luna?

The Luna of Fiona's most famous poetry inspired women to name their daughters Luna. And this girl, named Luna, asks for her mother the question--who was Luna?

Fiona wrote the poem "a lifetime ago," "back when I was a romantic," she responds. The girl presses. And for the first time ever Fiona reveals the story of her family and the secret she has held in her heart for so long.

"Once upon a time," she begins, "there was a father and a mother and four children...and for a time they were happy."

And like Fiona's audience, enrapt, I was carried away by her story of the ways love carries us and fails us and how we turn from each other and how we carry each other. Her story of love's truth, it's bitterness and how it is the only thing that makes life endurable, and our deeply held illogical hope, which experience tells us is fantasy, that love can and will save us.

And that is all I am going to tell you. I still feel the warm heartache, the fullness and pressure in my chest, the awful truth I encountered in this fiction. 

Look around at your beloved family, the people you have given yourselves to, the people who cut the deepest and brought the fullest healing, who made you strong and brought you to your knees. The people you endeavor to protect and save, the people you have lost and haunt you. And tell me--what is love? 

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Last Romantics

by Tara Conklin

William Morrow

publication February 5, 2019

$26.99 hardcover

ISBN: 9780062358202

ISBN 10: 0062358200

A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl by Jean Thompson

Women hold a family together. They plan the social activities and family gatherings, act as a buffer between butting heads, ease the high emotions of family conflict, and provide the meals for the family table that brings generations together.

It is not an easy job, or an easy life. Especially in families afflicted with personality disorders, addictions, mental illness, anger issues, conflict--or even with the usual garden variety issues common to all families.

A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl by Jean Thompson is about three generations of women who have struggled with holding the family together even when their personal dreams are sacrificed for their family. The characters, Evelyn, Laura, and Grace, are vital and distinct while recalling to mind our own mothers and daughters.

It is a heartbreaking story that spans from WWII to the present, each generation of women hoping to find self-fulfillment and true love yet putting the interests of others first.

Each woman who reads this novel must ask herself in what way has she repeated her mother's life, in what ways has she sacrificed her dreams, and if it was worth it in the end. And do we make these choices out of societal or familial expectation or out of the love we have for our children?

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl
by Jean Thompson
Simon & Schuster
Pub Date 09 Oct 2018
ISBN 9781501194368
PRICE $26.00 (USD)

So Much Life Left Over by Louis De Bernieres

Daniel was a legendary WWI Flying Ace, a survivor of the war now facing an immensity of endless days filled with trivialities. As a tea manufacturer in Ceylon, he has the company of Hugh who was also a pilot in the war, and a bright future in an exotic land. Daniel's wife Rosie is pregnant with their second child.

After the war, Daniel's brother Archie went to India, He is a risk taker and a drunk, in love with Rosie who married Daniel after her fiance died in the war. Rosie's sister Otillie in England is in love with Archie, but he distrusts anyone who could love him. He prefers his hopeless and unrequited love for Rosie. He writes to Otillie,"You could not have been my salvation, because no one ever will be. I am one of the damned..reconciled to my fate here in this most godforsaken and lunatic corner of the Empire."

Daniel and Archie also lost two brothers in South Africa.

'I used to have three brothers," he said fiercely, 'and now I only have one. Two brothers lost to the Empire. Both killed in South Africa. My father is dead. Archie is the only brother I have left.'

Rosie's sister Sophie married a clergyman who writes novels; they have been unable to have children. And then there is sister Christabel, a Bloomsbury Bohemian living with Gaskell, two women artists who long for a child. Gaskell tells Daniel, "We are looking for a new way to live...There must be a better way of doing things." They later involve Daniel in their 'new way.'

The war haunts Daniel and Rosie. For the moment they are living on the tea plantation like kings in paradise, expecting a second child. But happiness is elusive, and their marriage is imperiled by tragedy. Rosie retreats into religion leaving Daniel to find love elsewhere. Daniel dearly loves his children, especially his eldest, Esther. But as the marriage falls apart the children become pawns.

Their generation fought to save civilization. Louis De Bernieres writes that returning to civilian life, some men became drunks while others turned inward, some embraced the new world while others returned to their old life repressing the war into distant memory. Each character has been scared and altered by the war.

"Mr. Wragge was content in his modest paradise. After the death marches, and the months of tunneling in the mountains with a pick, this English garden was indeed a dream of Eden...Oily Wragge was determined to salvage his sanity out of the purgatorial experience of captivity."

So Much Life Left Over was a wonderful read, with gorgeous writing and interesting, conflicted characters. Daniel and Rosie and their families were wonderfully drawn. There are moments of humor and scenes of great sorrow. Even the minor characters, like Rosie's mother Mrs. McCosh and Oily Wragge are memorable.

Daniel and Mr. Wragge go to Germany to start a motorcycle business with former POWs Daniel had captured and befriended. Daniel witnesses firsthand the rising anti-Semitism that fuels the rise of Hitler. The dynamics are eerily familiar and disturbing. Nearly 100 years later, and we seem to be repeating history.

The novel continues the story in The Dust that Falls From Dreams, which I had not read and which one does not need to have read to enjoy this book. So Much Life Left Over has an open ending, with Daniel making a momentous decision. I felt I knew what he decides, but I am sure there is going to be another volume to continue his story. In the meantime, I do want to read more by de Bernieres, who also wrote Corelli's Violin.

Read an excerpt at
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/594960/so-much-life-left-over-by-louis-de-bernieres/9781524747886/

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

So Much Life Left Over
by Louis de Bernieres
Pantheon
Hardcover | $26.95
Publication date: Aug 07, 2018
ISBN 9781524747886

The Family Tabor: Atonement and the Search for Meaning

Harry Tabor is an emperor in his world. He has everything he could have ever imagined. The novel begins the day before Harry Tabor's recognition dinner as Man of the Year. In earlier times Harry would have been "running for his life" from pogroms, as did his grandparents, instead of living in Palm Springs with a lovely family gathering to see him honored. He thinks, "I have been a very lucky man," but as the authorial voice warns, "luck is a rescindable gift."

Harry hears a voice that resurrects memories buried so deep that he had lost sight of them completely. At seventy years old, Harry realizes he is unworthy of high honors and must face the truth and atone for his sins.

Harry's children also each struggle with secrets they can't reveal, a search for love or meaningful work, a need for spiritual or emotional rebirth, the need for mystery or the magic of ritual.

There came a time when I could not put this novel aside and found myself furiously reading and watching the battery life on my iPad counting down...20%...11%... I finished it just before the battery gave out, my husband very grateful that I was finally going to make him dinner. (Yes, he can cook, but has a bum knee right now.)

The happy family gathering is revealed to be a gathering of troubled souls, and by the grace of God, are bound together, each healed and made stronger. The novel's focus on the spiritual life of the characters may not appeal to some readers, but I loved it.

I loved Cherise Wolas's first novel The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, although I felt the ending dragged. For me, The Family Tabor began slow and gathered strength about halfway.

I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Family Tabor: A Novel
by Cherise Wolas
Flatiron Books
Pub Date 17 Jul 2018
ISBN 9781250081452
PRICE $27.99 (USD)

The Dependents: Wisdom in Grief

Something was keeping me from writing a review of The Dependents by Katharine Dion. I loved the book. I found it thoughtful and moving and surprising, and somber and soulful. Why was I wordless?

It came to me that I identified too much with Gene, the protagonist, a recent widower who can't move beyond the loss of his wife of 49 years.

I have been married for 46 years. I was a month from my 20th birthday when I married. And for all our ups and downs, good times and bad times, my husband has been my best friend. I could feel Gene's loss and knew it might someday be mine, or my husband's.

"In some mad inversion of time, grieving his wife's death resembled falling in love."-The Dependents

After Maida's sudden death, Gene learns that his wife was in many ways a stranger to him. Who truly knows and understands another? We are like locked chests, filled with treasures and terrors we can not share. Gene depended on Maida, saw only her best, assumed she was happy. But now he wonders, did she love him? Was Gene her 'one and only' or merely a comfortable compromise?

In college, the shy Gene latched onto the more worldly Ed. Ed pairs with Gayle, who Gene also liked, and introduced Gene to Maida. It took Gene a long time to make a move to make Maida his girlfriend; he fell in love with her first. He was elated when she agreed to marry him. He was lucky, he thought. The two couple's friendship has remained central to all their lives; they vacation together at the lake every year, raising their kids together.

Maida's dad set Gene up in his own shoe store business. Gene thought there was something honorable in fine footwear. But shopper's values changed, and the store closed. Maida had her work at the college child care center. Gene went to his old office out of habit.

Maida and Gene had a daughter, Dary, who has a daughter Annie. Dary is no comfort to her grieving father; she insists on an understanding of her mother that evades Gene's ideal. Dary insists Maida had other lovers before him and needs outside of her work as a childcare provider, wife, and mother. That she had given up some better version of herself to be Gene's wife.

As Gene begins to see who his wife truly was, he doubts everything he took for granted, struggling to understand how love was not enough, how he had failed the women he loved.

Gene must come to terms with the meaning of his life when so much had eluded him. When our life is nearing completion, should we second-guess our choices, regret the life we lived? Or realize it's what we wanted, after all.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

THE DEPENDENTS

by Katharine Dion

Little, Brown & Company

On Sale: June 19th 2018

Price: $13.99

ISBN-13: 9780316473880

The House of Broken Angels

Oh, my--this book! I was overwhelmed by this boisterous, complicated, colorful family gathered for the funeral of their matriarch and the last birthday of her son Big Angel, who is dying of cancer.

As I read, this family took residence in my heart. They were not so unlike my own family. I remembered the large family gatherings of my childhood; we have our 'colorful' characters, too. My cousins and I are are too quickly becoming the oldest generation--the next to die.

Through the story of one particular Mexican-American family, The House of Broken Angels recalls what it means to be family. Through the life and death of one man, we grapple with the purpose of our own life and death.

Big Angel's grandfather came to America after the Mexican Revolution, tried to enlist for service during WWI, then in 1932 the family was deported back to Mexico. He was First Angel.

Big Angel's deceased father, a cop, is still a powerful presence in the lives of Big Angel and his half-brother, Little Angel. He was feared, he was idolized, and he was hated. Big Angel's dad abandoned his family for an American woman,"all Indiana milk and honey" with "Cornflower-blue eyes." He had 'forgotten' he had a son named Angel in his first family. The half-brothers have had an uneasy relationship.

At his seventieth birthday party, Big Angel is surrounded by his beloved Perla and their children, Perla's sisters who he helped raise, his half-siblings, and grandkids. Those who have died, and a son who has been estranged, are present in aching hearts.

As Big Angel struggles with how to die, how to atone for his sins, and the legacy he wants to leave his family, we learn the family's stories, the things that have divided and alienated them, and the things that bind them together. They will break your heart and they will inspire you with the strength and love of their family bonds. The revelation of this purpose is the climax of the novel, a scene that you will never forget.

Author Luis Alberto Urrea was inspired by his own family in writing this book. His eldest brother was dying when a day before his birthday he had to bury his mother. The family put on a 'blowout party, the kind of ruckus he would have delighted in during better days."

Urrea also wanted to tell the story of Mexican-American families, about immigrants and the American dream, living on the border between two countries and cultures, the hopes and dreams and cruel realities.

Reviewers use the word exuberant in describing this book. It is!

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The House of Broken Angels
by Luis Alberto Urrea
Little, Brown & Co.
Hardbound: Price: $25.98
ISBN-13: 9781478915812

Lisa See and The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

The Troy Public Library in Troy, Michigan, hosted author Lisa See this week. I quickly bought her latest book, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, and read it in two days.

The author series has brought some great writers to the local public, including Elizabeth Berg, David Maraniss, and Emily St. John Mandel. 250 people signed up for See's presentation, the largest crowd yet!

A few years ago I read Lisa's earlier books Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy. This latest book focuses on a minority ethnic group, the Akha, who live in a biodiverse area comprised of parts of China and Laos. The book opens in 1988 when the Akha were still cut off from the modern world.

The Tea Girl is about mothers and daughters, a culture in transition, the "grateful but sad" experience of Chinese children adopted in the United States, and the history of Pu'er tea. We meet Li-yan and follow her story of sorrow and loss, self-reliance and renewal. 

See believes fiction should address what it means to be human, allowing readers to occupy another world and experience other realities. Her writing has certainly provided that experience for thousands worldwide.

With Lisa See and her new book at the
Troy Community Center, Troy, Michigan

I found the novel to be very interesting and engaging. I particularly responded to the section where the adopted girls discuss their experiences. Our son was friends with a boy adopted from China and he often related to us his concern for this boy's sadness and his feeling of alienation as the only Chinese boy in school.

I am a tea drinker and enjoyed learning about tea production and how it has changed. I was fascinated by the Akha culture and how the commercialization of Pu'er tea offered the advantages of electricity and sanitation while impacting their traditions.

"No coincidence, no story," the novel begins, quoting the main character's mother. The novel is filled with coincidences but so was the birth and development of the novel, See told the audience.

See knew she had to write about Chinese girls adopted into foreign families; being of American-Chinese heritage, she understood their question of identity. See found her story through several serendipitous experiences, from the sight of a girl's swinging ponytail as she walked with her parents to a fortuitous connection with a purveyor of Pu-er tea offering a chance to see the Akha people and experience the harvesting and processing of the tea.

When asked if she enjoys research or writing best, See admitted she loves the research aspect and talked about how the research impels her writing.

A comment was made on the nonjudgemental quality of her books, and See talked about "living in their clothes for a while" (a favorite quote from Wallace Stenger in his novel Angle of Repose) as her motivation for writing.

Another in the audience asked why See did not use her writing to make social statements. For instance, one novel she wrote about foot binding and in The Tea Girl the Akha view of twins as "human rejects" involving infanticide. See stated that telling the story is all that is needed, for no one is going read her book and think killing twins is a good idea! I agree. Great writing engages the reader's mind and heart; the story should be all that is needed.

See avoids reading fiction while writing to protect her voice. While on tour these past months she has enjoyed reading many genres, including South American writers and currently is reading House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea, which I have been reading.

See has written a book on her family, On Gold Mountain, and a mystery series. Her next book is set on a small island off Korea in a dying society where woman free divers are the 'breadwinners'.

Read about See's favorite novels at Off the Shelf here. She includes several of my favorites, including Howard's End by E. M. Forster and, of course, Wallace Stenger's Angle of Repose.

The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman

The Italian Teacher is destined to be one of my favorite reads of the year.

Tom Rachman's character Pinch is the son of a philandering, larger-than-life artist, Bear Bavinsky. Bear is charming and unreliable.

Pinch spends his entire life trying to get his dad's attention and approval. He imitates his dad, smoking a pipe early. In a one day lesson Bear teachers Pinch the fundamentals of painting and Pinch dreams of following in his father's footsteps.

Bear abandons Pinch and his mother, once his model, for the next model to pose for him; he leaves a string of women behind him and seventeen neglected children.

Bear routinely destroys any canvas he deems subpar. And he decides to stop selling or showing his art, a plan to drive up the values of his canvases. He becomes a legend, a tantalizing mystery in the art world.

Pinch feels a failure, unable to get what he needs from Bear. He flounders through his life, searching for an achievement that would finally elicit real love and approval from his father. His dissertation is on Caravaggio because his father once praised him; his dad doesn't remember doing so. Pinch ends up teaching Italian and foreign languages in London.

Not only is he unable to settle on a career, he loses his college girlfriend when she agrees to pose nude for Bear, which drives Pinch crazy: he knows his dad too well. He later marries a woman and again is too possessive and loses her. He finally moves in with a coworker, sharing a house.

His college friend Marsden comes in and out of his life, but is always reliable and can be counted on.

Too late, Bear corrects Pinch: he never said Pinch was a bad artist, just that he didn't have the personality and selfishness to BE an artist.

Pinch's life is sad, miserable, and heartbreaking. So, you ask me, why would you ever want to read this book about a loser? The story has an unexpected turn and a truly comedic ending

Of all his children, Bear chooses Pinch to be his confidence man, even leaving his estate and paintings to him. He believes Pinch understands and supports his intention.

 Pinch hatches a scheme that is the greatest scam of all time, a joke on the whole world of art, a way to keep his seventeen half-siblings happy, and still keep his promise to his dad.

And then...another reversal gives Pinch a place in the art world he so desperately desired. The novel left me laughing. It is a brilliant reversal.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Italian Teacher
by Tom Rachman
Viking
Publication Date: March 20. 2018
ISBN: 9780735222694
Hardcover $27.00

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them: Only Child by Rhiannon Navin

Zach is seven years old when his world collapses. A mentally ill man enters his elementary school with a gun. One of those murdered is Zach's ten year old brother Andy, a bright and vivacious child with Oppositional Defiant Disorder whose management had already stressed their parent's marriage. They are unable to agree on anything now: the mother bent on revenge, the father showing understanding of Zach's regression while he goes to work and carries on.

Zach is left on his own to deal with the conflicting feelings he is experiencing. In his secret hideout in Andy's closet he colors his emotions on separate paper; they are easier to handle this way. Red for embarrassment for peeing in bed like a baby. Black for for being scared and the bad dreams at night in which he relives the day of the school shooting. Green, like the Incredible Hulk, for anger. Gray for the sadness, like clouds on a rainy day.

He also returns to his favorite book series in which children learn the secrets of happiness.

Rhiannon's debut novel Only Child is written in Zach's voice, told from his perspective. The adult world feels distant and nearly unmindful of his existence. As adult readers, we understand the hints that pass over Zach's understanding. And we are heartbroken for Zach and for his parents as well.

It is marvelous that Zach is the moral compass of the story. He demonstrates a wisdom that the adults lack; caught up in their own pain they are oblivious to each other's needs. Zach seeks for healing and wholeness, and as the novel ends with Christmas time arrived, he is truly the light which comes to show the way to salvation for his broken family: forgiveness, kindness, thinking of others, and clinging to love.

The journey into the horror of a school shooting resolves by showing us how to live in this world. In the end, I was glad to have read this book, even now in mid-December when others turn to light holiday fare.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Only Child: A novel
By Rhiannon Navin
Hardcover $25.95
Knopf
Publication Date: Feb 06, 2018
ISBN 9781524733353

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

Our son grew up with a boy born in Asia who, as an infant, was adopted by an American, middle class family. He had perfectly nice parents and a biracial adopted sister. Our son told us the boy felt sad, wondering why his mother gave him up, and about how he was conflicted by being different as the only Asian in school. There was always an air of sadness about the boy.

I thought of that boy, now a man, while reading Lisa Ko's debut novel The Leavers. The book is a moving journey into the lives of Deming/Daniel, a Chinese American child adopted by an American family, and his birth mother Pelian/Polly, bold and strong but whose fierce love of her child cannot save them from the forces--poverty and the law-- that inevitably separate her from her child.

Pelian/Polly Gao is an unforgettable character, born in rural China, daughter of a fisherman. She imagines possibilities of another life and will do anything to achieve her dreams. She could have settled for marrying the village boy who loved her, remained in China, taking care of her aging fisherman father. She could have had an abortion and stayed in the Chinese factory dormitory, working long hours. Instead, she takes out a loan to go to America.

Her son Deming was born in New York City. But Polly's debt meant long hours working for low wages. She sends her son to live with her father in China. After the death of his grandfather, Deming rejoins his mother, who is living with her boyfriend and his sister and nephew. Those years are Deming's happiest. He adores his mother and has a 'brother' for best friend.

One day Deming's mother disappears. He is placed in a foster home and is adopted by an educated and well-off family. Now called Daniel, the boy never feels at home in his new world, any more than his mother had felt at home in her rural village.

Daniel flounders in life. Then he is brought into contact with people from his past who led him on a quest to find his mother. And finally learns the harrowing events that led to their separation.

Illegal immigration, the immigrant experience, the love between a mother and a child, and the search for authenticity and a place to belong are all themes in the novel.

The novel has garnered much well deserved praise and I purchased it to read. The beauty of Ko's writing and the memorable characters made this an outstanding read.