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.

Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage

Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024--San Antonio

I am only 10% into Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage, and I don't understand how this book can be compelling enough for it to have a 4/5 rating on Amazon.  The main character is completely unlikable--self-centered with undisciplined spending he cannot afford but considers important for impressing others which is causing a strain that is breaking his relationship with his mother because of borrowing money from her (with no intent of ever paying it back).  He wants to live the life he thinks he deserves.   He is searching for an easy way to the good life he wants by purposely planning to enter into a relationship with a wealthy man thinking it is his right and not even thinking it might not last or what will be expected of him in return.  He confuses abusive sex as a sign of love.  Etc.  It's obvious at this 10% point in the book that this young man is likely to face a long life of immature disappointment and frustration with only short-lived moments of excitement followed by lots of misery and depression.  Before reading further, I detoured to read reviews.  I was amazed at how many reviews seemed to think that the beginning of the novel (where I am now) is the best part.  If that is the case, how could anyone enjoy continuing to read?  There are criticisms of the book seeming disjointed, changing directions, etc., with many of them saying it should have never been published without better editing.  Well, I am not interested in going further into the book, especially since I really dislike this character and the reviewers seem to agree that none of the rest of the characters in the book are any more likable.  I rated the book 1 star out of 5!

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

 Monday, Jan. 22, 2024--San Antonio

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch was the winner of the Booker Prize this year.  It is a story of the fall of democracy in Ireland over a short period of time as an elected Far Right government declares emergency powers, closes borders, establishes a police force to make sure that anyone against them disappears, etc.  It is the story of what happened more slowly in places like Germany during the Nazi period, and what seems to be happening in places all over the world right now as far right governments come to power--places like Hungary, Turkey, and even the USA under Trump.  What's interesting is that Lynch wrote his story several years ago before Jan. 7 here and before the Far Right started making inroads in more liberal democracies in Europe such as Germany, Sweden, the EU, etc.  My guess is that the book was too much of a downer for him to get it published until all of these present rises of the Far Right began to seem serious threats.  This book being available right now is a warning of what could actually come to be for those of us who have felt safe with the freedoms we have had.  When Trump says, "I will be a dictator only on Day 1," that's all it would take to announce emergency powers, the production of a new national policing force, and to begin a process resulting in "disapearing" opponents and the establishment of rules to keep everyone wanting to leave the country in place.  The book is stressful to read, because it is easy to realize it has already happened elsewhere could actually happen wherever the reader lives.  At times, the stress from reading it resulted in my putting it aside after no more than 20 pages.  Toward the end, after civil war has broken out and the rebels have come close to taking back control, the government does what so many others have done.  They open a corridor to allow people to leave, but with heavy restrictions of what they can take with them and with traps along the way where the authorities require bribes which usually come in the form of money, but also with alternatives (for instance an hour alone with a 13-year-old daughter if she is pretty enough).  The end of the escape route has two branches that are familiar in the world today--one where everyone crossing the border who presents themselves to the government of the new country gets put in tent compounds possibly for years and another where smugglers are paid even more in bribes to be transported by trucks over land and rubber boats over seas until they reach another country with no certainty that they can trust those transporting them or that they will arrive alive.   I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024--San Antonio

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris was longlisted for the Booker Prize, has won other prizes, and has many very positive reviews from prominent sources.  It's a story that takes place in a small town in Georgia just after emancipation and during and after the final weeks of the Civil War.  The largest landowner in the area is the son of a northerner who came to the area and bought up a huge area of land.  The wealthiest and most prominent citizen in town is a man who does what he wants without worrying about whether it is against the law or not and considers it is his right to do so.  The sons of these two men are best friends who have been together throughout the war with "privileged" assignments to keep them safe due to the influential efforts of the wealthy townsman.  The book covers the difficulties of the changes of that time--many men not coming back from the war, plantation owners not wanting to accept that their paid-for slaves are no longer their own property and requiring salaries if they stay while having the right to leave if they want, accepting the temporary assignment of northern officers and soldiers to the towns to work with law enforcement followed by the arrival of the more strict reconstruction groups eventually sent in to take control, the resentment of local white citizens for what has happened and their retaliations including unjustified beatings and killings toward any black citizens who they feel have wronged them, etc.  But it is also a book about families--families trying to protect their own (sometimes in justifiable ways, but sometimes through cover-ups and the silencing of those who might bring harm to them), squabbles within families, etc.  Although there are many points of major tension that make it hard to go to the next page, it is really a very enjoyable book.  I gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024--San Antonio

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim is a story told by the college student female of a mixed-race family who is back at home because COVID has led to remote learning.  I almost quit reading the book because I became so frustrated by this character.  She is very intelligent when it comes to knowledge, but she is scatterbrained when it comes to applying that knowledge through reasoning.  She is so quick to make the wrong conclusions with the information she has--even to the point of ignoring what should be considered major factors she knows.  This book is a story of the disappearance of the father.  The only person with him at the time of the disappearance is a younger teenage son who is autistic, has angelman syndrome (where a person constantly looks as if they are smiling, and cannot speak verbally.  The police officer comes on strong thinking that the son has probably killed the father in a fight and wants to put the boy in detention.  The whole situation is a mess.  As time passes and the story unfolds, secrets are learned.  Plus there are long sections of the book with details from the father's notebook regarding his thinking and experiments in trying to analyze and develop a happiness quotient measurement tool--details that become boring to keep reading.  The strange thing to me is that this book is so popular that I had to wait 9 weeks with it on hold at the library before I could get it--longer than I have ever had to wait for a book before.  What a disappointment after all that waiting to find that it was a book I could have skipped.  I gave it 3 stars out of 5.