Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri

Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024--San Antonio

Roman Stories is the latest collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, a writer whose works I have always enjoyed.  I've read almost everything she has written.  Unlike other of her publications which are usually originally written in English, these stories were originally written in Italian and were translated into English (some by her, but most by an American translator).  The stories are intimate and interesting.  It is easy to picture the settings and to imagine oneself in place of the characters.  Although I didn't want to quit a story once I started it, I did, however, find myself delaying at times before starting a new one.  They just didn't "grab" me the way the ones in her previous short story collections have.  But it is a good collection and I would recommend it to readers.  I have the publication 4 stars out of 5.

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles

Friday, Nov. 16, 2024--San Antonio

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel are the titles of a two-book series of novels by KJ Charles.  Let in the early 1800s in the marshlands of Kent in England, they are gothic gay romance stories between the Doomsday smuggling clan and two local nobles--a baronet and an earl. Reading them was a nice escape from the previous novels I recently read where I found the protagonists to be despicable characters.  They are not great fiction, but they are good stories.  Each took only 2 days to read.   I gave each of the books a rating of 4 stars out of 5 (with an emphasis on the pleasure from reading them rather than the quality of the literature).  

The Slowworm's Song by Andrew Miller

Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024--San Antonio

The Slowworm's Song by Andrew Miller was better than I expected. The author is Irish, and the story is about a Quaker of Northern Irish descent living in England.  He has never been a devout Quaker, and his life when he was young was in a bit of a shambles due to not having a good job and also having a bit of a drinking problem, so he joined the army which sent him to Belfast during the time of the Troubles.  He never married, but he met a woman and fell in love and got her pregnant before going into the army.  They never lived together, and the daughter has mostly been estranged from him, although they have made contact in recent years.  She calls him Stephen rather than Dad.  He is now about 70.  His whole life has continued to be troubled by an event that took place in Belfast, and he is writing his life story in a missive to his daughter.  The book is what he is writing to her, so it slowly reveals his life and gives a plausible explanation of why it has been a very poor one at times.  In my mind, his life has been much like that of many of the Americans who came back from Vietnam--troubled by what they experienced and by the fact that no one at home wanted to even know what they had experienced.  He's obviously a good person from what he writes to the daughter.  And the way he expresses things is sometimes humorous.  Example said about a funeral director in the town:  "I don't know if funeral directors receive any training in first aid.  It wouldn't seem like a priority for them."  The book was listed as a top book of the year in 2022 by The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker.  I gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Day by Michael Cunningham

 Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024--San Antonio

Day by Michael Cunningham was named a best book of 2023 by NPR.  It centers around an extended family in Brooklyn.  Dan and Isabel are the parents of Nathan (10) and Violet (5).  They own an apartment that has an upstairs loft apartment which they rent to Isabel's brother Robbie.  Nearby lives Garth (Dan's brother), Chess (a lesbian) and their co-parented infant son Odin.  The adults are all in their 30s and are not satisfied with their lives.  Isabel has a very good job, but it is with a magazine which means there is a real possibility of the job disappearing; budget cuts and layoffs are already occurring.  Dan wanted to be a musician, but didn't make a success of it and finally offered to be a stay-at-home dad taking care of the children, doing the housework, and cooking the meals.  Robbie was accepted to three medical schools, but passed on those to remain in NYC as an elementary school history teacher; he is beginning to burn out in his job, plus, as a gay man, he has been unsuccessful at establishing a long-term relationship.  Garth is an unsuccessful artist and an undependable co-parent which Chess resents.  In addition, he wants them to be like a family while Chess would prefer that he not be in their life at all; all along, she just wanted him as a sperm donor.  The book covers 3 days (all Apr. 5) in 3 successive years--2019, 2020, and 2021--just before the pandemic hit, at the height of the fear and the restrictions of the pandemic, and as life started to return to more normal.  There's no real plot.  We get slices of life among these people that allow us to learn who they are, what they are like, what problems they have, etc.  Robbie is the most likable.  His family group has greatly depended on him being the glue that keeps things okay among them, but he has been asked to move out because the daughter and son need to have separate rooms due to their ages now.  His relationship with them seems to be the key to keeping the "family" stable and is about all he has that is important in his life. Everything seems to be threatened by his impending move.  There are complications, tragedies, stresses, etc., as the story progresses from year-to-year.  By the end, I felt that I knew these people well, and I "suffered" as I became aware of what had happened/was happening.  There were times when the dialogue didn't seem to fit for the vocabulary and maturity of a 5-8 year-old girl which bothered me.  Mostly for that reason, I gave the book only 4 stars out of 5 instead of more.

The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz

Saturday, Feb. 4, 2024--San Antonio

I did not enjoy reading The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz.  I doubt that anyone could say they did.  The protagonist's story is a dreary subject--an adult dealing with emotional problems caused by having having been trafficked as a young teenager to men who had abusive sex with him.  Much of the book is related to him taking increasingly dangerous drugs and having meaningless sex as a result.  Even at the end of the book when he seems to have finally settled down in life after reporting his abuse during a "lookback window" extending the time for filing court cases for child trafficking and abuse, he continues to use drugs as if it is normal part of adult life.  I guess the book is rather well written, but I never developed any empathy for the protagonist.  Maybe the point was that he had been damaged so much that he could not mature further.  It just made it a book that I couldn't appreciate reading.  I gave it 2 stars out of 5.