The Foghorn Echoes by Dan Ramadan

 Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023--San Antonio

The Foghorn Echoes by Dan Ramadan is a novel that won the Lammy award for best gay fiction in 2023.  It is a story about the lives to two young Syrian men growing up in a country where life became difficult for them due to family expectations, governmental laws, religious teachings, political turmoil, and a tragic event. It begins in Damascus at the time when Americans were invading neighboring Iraq and continues through the protests and civil war inside Syria.  The boys have barely discovered that there is more than friendship between them when their lives are overturned and eventually separated.  One leaves the country as a refugee while the other is forced into a marriage that was arranged when he was a young boy and his father's best friend and his wife were expecting a daughter to be born.  The refugee suffers from PTSD and loses control of his life as he seeks relief through frequent anonymous sex and drug usage.  The other runs away from home sleeping on the streets and eventually in an abandoned home.  Will their lives continue in misery forever?  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Good Material by Dolly Alderton

Sunday, June 30, 2024--San Antonio

Good Material by Dolly Alderton has been recommended as very funny.  It was funny at times, but not nearly to the extent of some other books I've read recently.  It is the story of a comedian who does a stand-up act in clubs, professional dinner gigs, and even sometimes works at conference exhibit halls giving samples or promoting products.  A few years ago, he was a host for a short-lived TV game show. He has never been very successful, but he makes enough money to have lived away from his family but only in an apartment with roommates.  For the past 4 1/2 years he has been in a relationship without being married.  Both he (Andy) and his girlfriend (Jen) are 35.  She is a very successful insurance company executive partner.  Their friends are all married and having children, but Andy has performing old material for some time now with with less success with present audiences, so he has been downgraded on the pay scale for booked jobs through his agent.  Jen does not really want to have children like her friends and is questioning whether she wants to continue to be in the relationship with Andy; she wonders if she was always meant to be single.  The book covers their breakup and the difficulty of adjusting and moving forward as both Andy and Jen worry about it in different ways while both try to keep secret tabs on how the other is handling it all.  Was the breakup a mistake?  Was the relationship good enough that they should go back to it?  What is is wrong in their lives other than the breakup?  Is there a path forward for both of them if they don't get back together?  Can Andy revive his career?  What does Jen really want in life since she also is not satisfied with demands of her work? Because of the final 15% of the book seemed to come alive more, I upgraded my rating to 4 stars out of 5.

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

Tuesday, June 25, 2024--San Antonio 

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck won the International Booker Prize this year.  Written in German, it was translated into English by Michael Hoffman.  There have been great reviews both for the book and the English translation of it.  The story takes place over a period of years from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.  This is the period in which communism began to crumble in the east and eventually the wall in Berlin was opened to the west and East Germany was annexed with the West.  The story is built around a relationship that develops between a young student who has just graduated at the age of 19 and a married man more than 30 years older than she.  Both are leading more privileged lives than those of most citizens of East Germany.  The young woman has relatives in Cologne who send western currency to be spent in the "hard currency" shop in Berlin, and she is even approved for an exit visa (rare for the government to give to anyone) to go to Cologne and visit her grandmother for a week.  The man, a writer and a host of a classical music radio show, has a visa that allows him to leave for the west regularly for presentations, conferences, etc., and is paid enough for him to entertain frequently in the best restaurants and bars of East Berlin.  They begin an affair.  But there are early signs of an imbalance in the relationship beyond age.  He is married and has no plans to leave his wife.  They appear to fall head-over-heals in love with each other, but he is demanding and expects her not to question his marriage or demands.  Their story seems to be a personal one paralleling what is happening in the government of their country.  The author parallels the two stories (of the couple's relationship and the happenings within the government) over time.  The young lady continues to love him as things deteriorate.  He becomes overly critical and demanding when he finds out she has had a one-night affair while away on a 1-year internship at a theater where she is learning set design.  They break up and get back together.  He sends audio tapes that are severely critical of her and expects her to respond in writing to what he has written.  She isn't mature enough to recognize that he is being manipulative and self-centered.  It is horrible to read what he has said on these tapes.  But the relationship continues off and on with the man never being sorry for how he is or admitting any wrong while always blaming her for having ruined it all between them.  The period between the fall of the wall and the combining of the two former countries is fascinating to read.  Because the two main characters are East Germans, it is told from the perspective of East Germans and what they faced during this period--a currency exchange (1 West German Mark for every 2 East German Marks saved by the citizens there), jobs being lost, buildings being taken over by West German agencies, rents being raised 3-fold for apartments (while the renters were also waiting to see if they would even be allowed to keep their apartments), etc.  By the time the book ends most of the privileged class of East Germans citizens has fallen, and it is common for East Germans to question what cost they have paid for "freedom" (which starts to seem to be only the right to buy whatever they want when they want it [if they have the money] vs. not having quality goods or everything they might have wanted on the shelves in the past).  The book is a bit complicated to read, but it was worth the effort for me.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

Martyr by Kaveh Akbar

Tuesday, June 18, 2024--San Antonio

Martyr by Daveh Akbar is an interesting book.  The central character is a young man whose mother died in an Iranian plane shot down by the USA when he was an infant.  His father, who had a good science-related job in Iran but was concerned about how things were developing there and was depressed and frustrated with the loss of his wife, moved with the son to the US where he took a job at a poultry farm in Ft. Wayne working 6 days a week.  Cyrus, the son, is also depressed, but he is intelligent and manages to attend a nearby university majoring in literature and writing.  His father dies during his when Cyrus has completed only two years of college.  Cyrus sees it as a final liberation from his past and eventually finishes his degree.  He has been depressed most of his life.  This has led him to become dependent on alcohol and eventually alcohol combined with drugs.  He writes lots of poetry, but has to live on limited income from menial jobs.  He dreams of  becoming a successful writer with a novel about martyrs (which he was taught that his mother was in Iran and which he believes that many people are due to various circumstances in their lives), but even though he eventually enters recovery and maintains sobriety, he never really figures out how to make progress on the novel nor to grow professionally.  He has a hard-nosed sobriety sponsor who helps keep him on the straight and narrow.  And he has a best friend/roommate Zee who he more or less uses for his own advantage.  Cyrus is bisexual, so he has intimacy with Zee, but without commitment.  Another friend shows him an article about a female artist, also of Iranian descent, who is dying because of breast cancer that has spread to the rest of her body and become incurable.  The artist is living the last days of her life as a form of performance art within the Brooklyn Museum meeting with museum-goers who wish to line up and talk to her and ask her questions about death/dying.  Cyrus decides that meeting this artist might be what he needs to needs as a way to provide insight, direction, and incentive to finally make progress on his proposed novel.  He and Zee head to Brooklyn for 4 days.  While there, both their lives change in unexpected and dramatic ways.  Much of the book seemed underwhelming to me as a reader--just slogging along and making me wonder why it has gotten such good reviews (listed as a best book of the first part of this year by the New York Times and highly reviewed on NPR).  But the story really comes alive in the final third of the book.  My rating is 4 stars out of 5--a bit lower than that of most other readers.

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

 Tuesday, June 11, 2024--San Antonio

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid was mentioned in a story on NPR about the trend of "hockey romance novels" that is occurring.  When identifying a couple of the best, this title was mentioned because of it being unique in that the romance is between two professional hockey players rather than about a woman who is involved romantically with a hockey player.  I decided to give it a try since it was available from Libby.  It has many admirable attributes--well written, interesting story, interesting characters, realistic depictions of all aspects of the story.  It compares well with the best of other non-hockey gay novels while emphasizing descriptions of the sexual interactions more frequently and in more detail. But I generally prefer literature with less coverage of the specifics of the sexual act and especially not as frequently as it was covered in this novel.  The story seemed authentic in terms of the experiences that gay men have and the frustrations they face in life in determining whether they can "afford" to come out versus keeping their relationship a hidden secret.  The fact that the relationship is between two of the top new rookies, one Canadian and the other Russian, who are promoted as bitter enemies and rivals makes it a more interesting story.  Ilya, the Russian, is bisexual but finds that his relationship with Shane, who is gay, has a greater affect on him than any of his relationships with women.  Ilya also is learning English and, therefore, has limited vocabulary and has to think a bit more to construct what he wants to say when speaking in English; the result is very charming for the way he does say things.  He doesn't have enough of an English vocabulary to be more subtle about what comes out of his mouth, and it is often hilarious!  Shane is sweet and caring.  They spend 6 years meeting in secret when they are both in the same cities--when their teams are competing against each other, when there are all-star games or championship playoffs, etc.  The relationship gradually grows from one that they both need because it fulfills a desire that they cannot openly declare without possibly ruining their careers, to one that they cannot live without and must find a way to be together more than they have been.  As a romance novel, it probably deserves a higher rating, but because I felt it overemphasized the sexual act in too much detail too often, I give the book 4 stars out of 5.

A Shining by Jon Fosse

Saturday, June 8, 2024--San Antonio

A Shining by Jon Fosse is a novella--a VERY short novel.  It is quite different, too.  It is one long paragraph.  All the words are thoughts within the mind of a man--quick thoughts circling around in his head with some repetition and slow forward progress.  The man seems to be depressed and to have lived alone for some time.  He has driven into the country taking planned turns to purposely get lost--right at the first intersection, left at the second intersection, and so on until he has come to a dead end on a grass-track road going up in altitude with no more intersections.  Ahead is a forest of pine trees with a walking trail into the woods.  The car is stuck--the ruts lower than the grass mound between them which has stopped the car's movement rather than him putting on the brakes.   All of this seems to be steps in a depressed man's attempt to let his life come to an end.  It is snowing and cold.  He can't go further in the car, so he walks into the woods following the trail.  He has only his regular clothes and shoes, so it is very cold.  Soon it is getting dark so that he is unsure if he is still on the trail.  He is changing directions as he did when driving.  Therefore, he comes to the realization that he is lost in the dark woods and cannot get back to his car.  There is a round smooth stone that looks like a good place to sit down since limbs above it have collected the falling snow and left the stone uncovered and since he is tired and just wants to rest.  All of this may be symbolic for something happening totally elsewhere but manifesting it in his mind this way, but it soon becomes evident that the man is going through a process of dying.  There is a shining light.  His parents appear.  A man in a black suit and tie appear.  Then the light, his parents, and the shining light are all there together.  No one is wearing shoes, not even him, yet he remembers he had them on when he left the car and cannot remember ever taking them off.  So much has not been making sense to him.  Eventually, he joins hands with all the others, and more things occur that don't make sense.  Even breathing changes to not really involving breathing air.  And then the thoughts stop, too, and the reader is at the end of the one paragraph novel!  It's different.  It's thought-provoking.  Even though it is short, I wanted to stop reading out of lack of interest toward the beginning.  But I persisted and started reading faster and faster since I realized it was just thoughts spinning in the man's head.  And before I knew it my reading was progressing rapidly toward the end of the book.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle

Friday, June 7, 2024--San Antonio

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle is a fantasy novel which I read because of a review on NPR.  I don't normally read such novels, but it was an enjoyable story.  I found both the beginning and the ending of the novel to feel a bit rushed and disjointed from the rest.  And there were times when I was confused about who was speaking where there were quotation marks; this caused me to have to go back a bit and then sometimes forward a bit to know for sure.  It's also a fairy tale due to the development of a romantic relationship that would not normally have happened in such a time and place.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5. 

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

Tuesday, June 4, 2024--San Antonio

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman is not an attention grabber in terms of entertainment.  Instead, it is story taking a rather deep dive into the following: 1) The changes in the operations of general retail stores in the US (looking specifically at a Target-like chain) as Amazon has disrupted the situation in the past few decades.  2)  Pointing out the loss of well paying manufacturing jobs in the US as manufacturers moved production to countries with lower wages.  3) Noting the way both of these changed the types of jobs left for lesser educated Americans and the benefits and hours of such workers (paying particular attention to those at this one chain store in this one town that has suffered the loss of manufacturing jobs).  4) Describing the effects of these changes on the lives, ambitions, and living standards of the employees of these stores.  5) Providing a window for Americans over 40 years of age to see how young people today cannot dream of or build lives that they did because of how the economy has changed since the late 1900s related to the types of jobs available, pay rates, prices, benefits, etc.--creating challenges in life that are not easy to overcome even for those with a good education.  It was listed as a top book of 2024 by a number of sources apparently because it provides a clear view to older Americans of why younger people are flailing (and failing) in their efforts to get started on the ladder toward success in our country these days.  It does this well, but it isn't a novel that kept me glad I was reading it.  I gave it 3 stars out of 5.