Half Gods by Akil Kumarasamy

The connected stories in Half Gods by Akil Kumarasamy create an intergenerational history of an Indian Tamil family from the first generation who left India to work in the tea estates of Sri Lanka to children born in America. 

The stories are heart-breaking, some addressing the discrimination and murder of Tamils in Sri Lanka while others explore the immigrant experience. I am haunted by these characters with their complicated back stories. The storytelling is mesmerizing. Sometimes I felt a bit lost, as if a visitor in a foreign land whose culture and reality jolt me outside my comfortable reality. 

America has its horrors and violence, but for someone like myself who has been comfortably sheltered, it is an awakening to read lines like "They all loved people who were born to disappear," or "Refugees can't be picky," or "the real difference between India and American...there is no rule of law in India. You need to bribe everyone to live a normal life." 

Imagine an engineer who in America must work as a butcher. A Tamil professor in Sri Lanka who receives death threats and whose son disappears. An old man who returns home to find his entire village missing and replaced by a hole in the ground. A Tamil man memorizes books because he saw the burning of books in his language.  

The family patriarch in Half Gods is descended from Tamils who came to Ceylon harvest tea. The family experienced the end of colonization when the British left Ceylon, reborn as Sri Lanka. They suffered during the Anti-Tamil riots when their village was destroyed, fled to a refugee camp, and finally immigrated to America.

Sri Lanka, once called Ceylon, is an island first inhabited in the stone age. Beginning in the 16th c European countries colonized the island--first the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally the British. They built rubber, coffee, and coconut plantations. When the coffee plants were decimated by a fungus, tea was grown, and to harvest the tea, Tamils from southern India were brought over as indentured servants.

When the country gained its independence, the Sinhalese were the dominant group, making their language the official one. The Tamils were marginalized and tried to gain a political voice. Anti-Tamil riots arose; Tamils were killed and others left the country. Out of this conflict, the Liberation Tamil Tigers were birthed and civil war ensued. 

Nearly 300,000 displaced persons were housed in government camps and 100,000 people died during the war. Sri Lanka ranks as having the second highest number of disappearances in the world.

I mistakenly thought the book was a collection of stories, which I usually read one at a time. After a few stories, I realized the interconnectedness and so suggest reading as you would a novel.

Akil Kumarasamy received her MFA from the University of Michigan. This is her first book.

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

Half Gods
by Akil Kumarasamy
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub Date 05 Jun 2018 
ISBN 9780374167677
PRICE $25.00 (USD)

from the publisher:

A startlingly beautiful debut, Half Gods brings together the exiled, the disappeared, the seekers. Following the fractured origins and destinies of two brothers named after demigods from the ancient epic the Mahabharata, we meet a family struggling with the reverberations of the past in their lives. 

These ten interlinked stories redraw the map of our world in surprising ways: following an act of violence, a baby girl is renamed after a Hindu goddess but raised as a Muslim; a lonely butcher from Angola finds solace in a family of refugees in New Jersey; a gentle entomologist, in Sri Lanka, discovers unexpected reserves of courage while searching for his missing son. 

By turns heartbreaking and fiercely inventive, Half Gods reveals with sharp clarity the ways that parents, children, and friends act as unknowing mirrors to each other, revealing in their all-too human weaknesses, hopes, and sorrows a connection to the divine.

Bricks and Pavers, or Learning about the Money Pit

My parents bought the ranch house in 1972
Note the television antenna!

We live in the house my folks bought in 1972 and which I inherited at my father's death nine Decembers ago.

Mom and Dad

My folks bought the house in January. Dad finished the basement right away. That June our wedding reception was held in the back yard!

My younger brother grew up in this house.

It's been through a lot of changes over the years. Dad planted a lot of trees.

When our son was born we lived in a Philadelphia rowhouse. So visiting my folks meant he could have some yard play with a swing in a tree and a little pool. Below, my dad is spraying Chris with a hose.

Three Generations: my grandmother, son, and mother.

Dad put in an above ground pool. Our son loved it, too.

Dad enjoyed his home and was proud of it. In 1990 my mother died. It took some years, but dad made changes to the house. He brought in pinball machines and the basement became his 'man cave.'

Dad's last Easter

After I inherited the house we made changes. We removed dying and overgrown trees, upgraded for energy efficiency, installed a new electrical system. We remodeled the finished basement and began to replace the old appliances.

My brother gave us a tree when we moved in four years ago.

Our second year we remodeled the kitchen. The third year we needed new HVAC and water heater and a garage roof.

Last fall we had new siding and gutters installed and replaced the original toilet.

The house was built in 1966 of Old Chicago Common brick, reclaimed from Chicago buildings that were constructed in the 19th c. The bricks were made along Lake Michigan by hand. They are becoming harder to find as fewer 19th c buildings are being torn down.

 
These bricks are porous and more fragile than common red bricks. We had a lot of decay along the ground and in the chimney. Plus, the front steps were buckling and bulging, even though we had them remade five or six years ago.

We used Home Advisor and listed our needs and All Brick Design answered. The project manager came out and gave us a bid. It was going to cost a lot more than we had budgeted but the work had to be done.

They were in within a week, first demoing the front steps. What they found was a huge hole! And the 'footing' was not poured concrete but some slabs set in the dirt and some plywood. It threw the workers and the project manager for a loop. They would have to seal the wall and fill in the hole before they could proceed.

 

The new steps were to be made with concrete pavers which require a packed base with crushed stone. The landing pad was increased in size to be square with the steps. They were also planning to make me side door steps to replace the concrete formed one that was there since the house was built.

 The finished steps and landing pad!

The project manager was going to have to charge us extra for the project but offered a suggestion. My father had laid the back patio forty years ago. The patio blocks were discolored and the patio did not drain well, collecting a pond of water every hard rain. The railroad ties that dad used around the patio were unsightly and insects were enjoying the rotting wood.

Kamikaze on the old patio last fall.

The project manager gave us a bid on the patio, lower because they were already doing work at the house, and he would not charge extra for the step project. We already had one bid for the patio rebuild. We shook hands on the offer. Day two, along with brick replacement, they tore out and replaced the patio!

The patio bricks have been removed, showing the plastic Dad had installed underneath.

leveling the sand base

What an improvement!

So, over three twelve-hour days, we got a new front step, side step, brick replacement, and a new patio! Which looks great. The next day it rained and the rain did not pool, but ran off the ends of the patio, away from the house.

In a few weeks, we will have some landscaping done and there is still work to be done in the back yard. Next year we will install a new fence to replace the one Dad put in when he put up the first swimming pool.

Meantime, the robins love our birdbath so much they have built their nest in the apple trees!

Tesla: Inventor of the Modern by Richard Munson

Nikola Tesla has become a Culture Icon known more for his reputation as a kind of magician and rogue inventor, thanks to the movie The Prestige, and as a visionary, his name recognized because of Tesla Motors. And yet few of us understand that everything we take for granted today--the electric grid, cell phones, satellite television, the Internet, the smartwatch, and even the remote control of warfare--first sprung from his imagination.

I knew Tesla from bits and pieces. I remember when my son and husband bantered about things looking like a 'Tesla coil,' a reference to a weapon in Command and Conquer Red Alert. The 2006 movie The Prestige showed Tesla's Colorado laboratory and work in remote transmission of electricity.
In 2016 I read The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore, an exciting historical novel about the rivalry between George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison, with Tesla in the center. In The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson and The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City by Margaret Creighton I learned about the Chicago and Buffalo fairs lit by Tesla and George Westinghouse.

And then, in my mailbox, I found a gift from W. W. Norton-- a copy of Richard Munson's biography Tesla: Inventor of the Modern. I was pleased to have all these bits and pieces of knowledge integrated into an understanding and appreciation of Tesla's life and work and legacy.

The more I learned about the man, the less I felt I 'knew' him. He was brilliant and flawed and complicated and chimerical. He worked out entire inventions in his mind before he built them. He was impeccably dressed and amazingly fit-- and a charming germaphobe who could not be touched. His obsessive-compulsive disorder ruled his habits and he fought depression with self-administered electroshock therapy. He was a lousy businessman who signed away his rights to millions and later, deep in debt, lost his research facilities. He could be vain and he could be magnanimous. He was addicted to the pure science of discovery.

"The War of the Currents" refers to the rivalry between inventors vying for precedence. Thomas Edison clung to direct current, which could not be transmitted over long distances and relegated electric power to the rich few. Tesla invented alternating current capable of powering whole regions. With George Westinghouse using Tesla's inventions, in 1893 they created the City of Lights at the Chicago Columbian Expedition.

The commission to harness the power of Niagara Falls attracted worldwide attention. Westinghouse and Tesla won the contract and in 1896 the hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls was opened, powering the Rainbow City at the 1901 Pan-American Expedition in Buffalo, NY. Tesla saw the feat as signifying "the subjugation of natural forces to the service of man" that would "relieve millions from want and suffering."

The Electric Tower at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition
at Buffalo, NY. 1901 Pan-American Redwork quilt detail.
In the collection of Nancy A. Bekofske

The Electricity Building at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition.
1901 Pan-American Redwork quilt detail.
In the collection of Nancy A. Bekofske

Tesla had reached superstar status, but already he was envisioning the next big idea.

At the turn of the century, gas lamps still reigned, with only 8% of American homes wired for electricity. The question remained to be answered:"Was electricity for all or for the wealthy? Would power become a necessity or remain a luxury?" Tesla was obsessed with the idea of using the earth for the transference of wireless electric power.

He went on to invent remote control and multichannel broadcasting systems. Tesla had little interest in creating and marketing useful devices based on his discoveries. He rejected an offer to develop wireless communication for the US Lighthouse Board and other projects which would have financed his research.

Next up, he built a research center in Colorado, portrayed in the movie The Prestige in which David Bowie plays Tesla in Colorado puttering around with wireless energy. His last facility on Long Island, NY went far over budget. Tesla was broke. He lost backers who wanted practical applications, something they could make money on, and Tesla was only interested in pure research. It was heartbreaking to read about Tesla's untethered last years, his increasing eccentricities in behavior, and poverty as he watched other smake millions on his ideas and inventions.

Munson offers Tesla as a role model, writing, "...we have great need today of Tesla's example of selfless out-of-the-box thinking if we are to tackle our twenty-first-century challenges...particularly in the electric-power industry he helped create." Munson continues, "he would lead a charge for sustainability and against the carbon pollution that is changing our climate." Tesla knew that coal was a limited supply and imagined harnessing energy from the sun and geothermal energy.

In short, Tesla was one of the most interesting and remarkable men I have read about. I appreciate that Munson's explanations of Tesla's discoveries and inventions were written so the general reader could grasp them.

1901 Pan-Amerian Redwork quilt detail. Dreamland.

Tesla: Inventor of the Modern
by Richard Munson
W. W. Norton & Co.
Hardcover $26.95
May 2018
ISBN 978-0-393-63544-7

The Tyre by C. J. Dubois & E. C. Huntley

Reincarnation brings hope to Ranji. He accepts his fate with resignation. He lives under a Banyan tree in a grass-roofed hut.

Ranji is an untouchable in Tamil Nadu who supports his family by gathering wood from along the road, returning home after dark. Cars rush by, deadly cobra lurk near anthills. Yet he is content. He has a beautiful wife who loves him, a son making a living in the city, and a scholarly daughter who hopes for the college education her elder brother had to forgo. He needs little, money for his daughter's schooling and for food. His wife saves money and dreams of a new sarai, while Ranji dreams of a bicycle.

One evening Ranji is returning home when he hears a noise and discovers a large tire has fallen off a passing truck. He hides it in the bushes to retrieve later.

As Ranji life changes. A holy man, once an engineer, teaches him about the tire. His knowledge impresses the man who hires him to harvest rice and he is given a better job. Meanwhile, his wife has attracted the attention of a richer man, a known seducer. When the monsoon season becomes deadly, all Ranji's problems and good fortune bring him to question: was the tire given to him to ruin his life, or to bring good fortune?

I enjoyed being immersed in a world so vastly different from my own, living with these characters who are content with so little while deserving so much more. The novel is more than a look at another culture, it is a mirror in which we can reflect on our own values, hopes and dreams, leaving us to wonder at the strange serendipity that sometimes alters our lives in unimaginable ways.

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

The Tyre
by C. J. Dubois, E. C. Huntley
Thistle Publishing
Pub Date 31 May 2018
EDITION Paperback
ISBN 9781786080646
PRICE £7.99 (GBP)

CAMEO Quit Guild Hosts Karen Turckes of Windberry Studio

On May 17, 2018, the CAMEO Quilters Guild hosted Karen Turckes of Windberry Studio as their speaker. Karen uses hand dyed fabrics, fabric manipulation, and surface design in her quilts.

Karen holds a degree in Textile and Clothing Degree from Michigan State University and is a graduate of Jane Dunnewold’s Surface Design Mastery Program. She has participated in the Grand Rapids Art Prize and her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums.

Samples were passed through the audience. Below is a pillow with trapunto work, traditionally created by stuffing wadding between lines of quilt stitching. Karen uses a layer of batting to quilt the top, then cuts out the batting outside the stitching lines, and then used another layer of batting behind the whole top.

The sample below demonstrates the use of machine stitches and couched cording in surface design, which she then machine quilted.

Using a stabilizer fabric, Karen machine embroiders commercial fabric. The stabilizer washes out.

Karen uses a folded fabric technique similar to Cathedral Windows to create blocks which are set together in the quilts below.

In this project, she used two fabrics to create a fold that contrasts with the inset and outer fabrics.

Fabric can be folded and pressed to create texture. In the pillow below a folded purple fabric gives visual interest. It is embellished with Chinese coins.

The fabric is folded and pressed to create roseate forms in the quilt below.

Here is another example of fabric that is pressed, with inserts of her folded blocks, all sewn down flat.

The round folded top was created with a center hole later filled in with an insert and button.

A sampler shows many ways of using manipulated fabric.

Fabric can be sewn to a base that shrinks, resulting in a puckered look. Here Karen tried a whole applique block. She also uses the method to create textured fabrics for her landscape quilts.

Samples of hand dyed fabrics using various methods were also passed around including folded fabrics, use of dye resist wax, printing, and other methods.

Karen was to lead a class in designing landscape quilts but we only saw slides of her work. Her process is quite simple, starting with three fabrics for sky, water or main section, and near section. She adds elements of natural or manmade structures, animals, trees, etc. When she is satisfied she irons the pre-fused fabrics in place and embellishes with thread and quilting.

Karen warns that Steam-a-Seam II must be ironed to fabrics with a hot steam iron. She uses a denim needle to sew through the fused or folded layers of fabric.

During her presentation, Karen covered all the techniques for surface and fabric manipulation and fabric dying as a basic introduction.

A View of the Empire at Sunset: A Novelization of the Life of Jean Rhys

I read The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys some years ago and found the novel an unforgettable prequel to Jane Eyre from the viewpoint of Rochester's 'mad' wife.

Rhys vividly described the Caribbean childhood of Antoinette Cosway Rochester, a beautiful Creole whose family entraps Mr. Rochester into marriage. Rhys interprets Antoinette as the victim of a man repulsed by the sensuality of the Caribbean culture and horrified by female sexuality.

When I saw that Caryl Phillips' novel A View of the Empire at Sunset was based on the life of Gwendolyn Rees Williams, who wrote as Jean Rhys, I was eager to read it. I expected passion and glamour and agony.

Gwen was the child of a British man and a Creole woman, unhappily paired. Dominica is beautifully described, the "raucous cacophony of cicadas and frogs," the bats around the mango trees, the mosquitos and the "sickly sweet aroma of the night lilies.'

At sixteen, Gwen was forced from her beloved homeland to be educated in England under her aunt's care. She never really adjusts. She leaves school for the theater and music halls, is taken as a mistress then discarded, becomes a prostitute, has an abortion, is married several times. She drinks too much. Her older brother suffers from "delusions and bouts of agitated mania."

The novel opens in 1936 when Gwen and her husband return to her homeland. They are unhappy, but Gwen thinks that if he could see her roots perhaps he would understand she is not of his world. When he sees the view of the empire at sunset, there would be understanding that she could never really be English. Gwen learns that she can't go home again.

Gwen's literary life is outside of the novel, concentrating on her personal life. The "Empire at sunset," the Edwardian Age and colonization in Dominica, is vital to the story.

The novel offered me an understanding of Gwen's darkness and disorientation, her lack of options, the sad feeling of being the temporary object of men's desire. And I saw how young Gwen was devalued in her homeland, not British enough to be respectable, too hoyden and uncivilized, too close to the Negro servants.
And unforgettable was the ending, Gwen and her husband at the burned ruins of her family home, unable to grasp why the Negros would have destroyed such a beautiful place, the sins of colonization beyond their understanding. But I was disappointed in the emotional distance I felt, especially when I expected some of the pathos and passion of Rhys's writing.

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

A View of the Empire at Sunset: A Novel
by Caryl Phillips
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub Date 22 May 2018
ISBN 9780374283612
PRICE $27.00 (USD)