Fiction Review: The Half Moon

In February, I finally read Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane, as a Buddy Read, with a Booktube friend in Singapore (my review at the link). She and I both loved the intricate family drama and really enjoyed discussing it. So, I was thrilled when I spotted Mary Beth Keane on the author list for Booktopia, an annual event I attend each spring! I read her more recent novel (now out in paperback), The Half Moon, and found it to be another winner.

Malcolm seems to be living his dream, owning a bar called the Half Moon where he has worked since he was a young man, talking and laughing with familiar patrons each night, and married to the love of his life, Jess. But underneath the surface, there are several storms brewing. As the novel opens, a real-life winter storm is headed toward Gillam, NY, (the same town as in Ask Again, Yes). In the last hours before Malcolm closes the bar for the approaching storm, he gets some devastating news about Jess, who left him months earlier, saying she needed time to herself. When Malcolm awakes the next morning to find the power is out and the entire town is snowed in, he also gets a visit from the police who tell him that one of his bar's regulars has disappeared. And only a few people, including Jess, know that Malcolm and the bar are in deep financial trouble. It's the perfect storm, as all of these crises collide in one freezing cold, snowbound week in a small town.

While the present-day action all takes place over a week, flashbacks and characters' memories fill the reader in on all that led up to this week: how Jess and Malcolm met fifteen years ago, their hopes and dreams, their long struggle with infertility, the history of the bar, and what Jess has been doing since she left Malcolm. There are plenty of intriguing plot twists here, but as in Ask Again, Yes, the focus is on relationships and the characters' interior lives. In particular, this novel explores midlife, with all of its joys and sorrows, routines and disruptions, surprises and disappointments, all within a small town setting where everyone knows everyone else. I love this kind of emotional complexity in a novel with such layered real-feeling characters. Malcolm and Jess are dealing with a lot, and things seem pretty dark in the middle of the novel, but Keane wraps it up perfectly. I thoroughly enjoyed this thoughtful, warm story about relationships, changes, and forgiveness. I can't wait to meet the author this weekend!

296 pages, Scribner

Simon & Schuster Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge
 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 
  

Fiction Review: Everything the Light Touches

I recently finished another audiobook for my Big Book Summer Challenge, Everything the Light Touches by Janice Pariat. I was sold on this book when I read comparisons to Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, which I loved, and Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, which is still in my stack for this summer. I enjoyed this beautifully written novel that weaves four stories together from different times and places, all linked by a nature theme.

We first meet Shai, a young woman in modern-day India. She has recently lost her job and moved from Delhi back to the smaller city where she grew up. She learns from her mother that her beloved nanny, who raised her from infancy to her teen years, has taken ill, so Shai sets off on a journey to visit her. Her nanny lives in a remote village in the mountainous northeast, a place so isolated that it has no roads to it. The elderly woman is, indeed, quite ill, living in a small home with her daughter. Shai ends up staying with her for a lengthy time, helping to care for her, becoming a part of the slower, quieter life of the remote community. She also helps out in the garden, reconnecting with nature, which is very important to her own father.

In the early 1900's, a young woman named Evelyn is leaving England for a long trip on a ship to visit India. While everyone around her expects her to find a husband and settle down, Evelyn keeps her true purpose hidden. She studied botany at Cambridge and was fascinated by the writings of Goethe, who proposed a whole new way of looking at plants, as a whole, integrated natural world. Evelyn wants to go on an expedition to the northeastern mountains, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in search of what might be a mythical plant.

In the 1780's, Goethe himself is traveling from his home in Germany to Italy and immersing himself in the unique natural world he discovers there. During his years spent in Italy, he comes up with his own view of the natural world that is in contrast to the study of botany at the time, defined by Linneaus. The famous botanist made a career (and changed the study of botany) by identifying and categorizing individual plants and their components in minute detail, but Goethe sees the natural world as an integrated whole; from this trip, he will write his lesser-known work, The Metamorphosis of Plants.

And, finally, we meet Linneaus himself, on an expedition in 1732 to Lapland, in the northernmost region of Finland. Linneaus is encountering wholly unique plants that he has never seen before and applying his rules of identification and classification. This section sounds as though it may have been taken directly from Linneaus' journals.

The novel's narrative takes us through each of these four unique stories, set in different times and places and focusing on different characters ... and then back again through Goethe, Evelen, and Shai's stories. The thread connecting all of these disparate narratives is nature and different ways of seeing the world: splitting it into its component parts or seeing it as an integrated whole. The inclusion of real-life historical figures gives the narrative extra dimension and relation to the real world. Along the way, the author also addresses colonialism, class differences, environmental issues, and constant change in the world. It's a lyrical novel, with moving passages that capture the beauty of nature and its effect on each of the characters' very different lives. While its structure of interwoven stories from different times did remind me of Cloud Atlas, it also brought to mind The Overstory by Richard Powers, with its disparate characters coming together to focus on the natural world. I very much enjoyed this unique and immersive novel that was excellent on audio, with multiple narrators.

512 pages, HarperVia

HarperAudio

This book fits in the following 2023 Reading Challenges:

 

Alphabet Soup Challenge - E

Diversity Challenge

Travel the World in Books - India, Italy, Finland

Big Book Summer

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

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Fiction Review: Country of Origin

My reading for the next month or so will be mostly focused on preparing for Booktopia 2022 (click Events and scroll down for more info), an annual book weekend my mother and I often attend in Manchester, VT, at the amazing Northshire Bookstore. It's a weekend where readers and authors hang out together, with author talks, meals, bookseller recommendations, and more bookish fun. The bookstore chooses 8-10 authors with new releases, and the attendees often read the books ahead of time (so it's like a big weekend-long book group discussion!). My first read for Booktopia 2022 was Country of Origin by Dalia Azim, due out April 12, and I absolutely loved this original story of family and immigration, spanning generations. The Northshire staff always chooses amazing books!

As the novel opens in 1952 Cairo, fourteen-year-old Halah has escaped to the rooftop of her family home, as she often does. Young women in her society are strictly controlled and protected, and Halah rarely leaves her home, except when her father's driver takes her to her private British school and back. This time, though, while on the roof, Halah can see fires burning all over the city. It is the beginning of Egypt's revolution to become independent from Britain. As the violence worsens, Halah is pulled out of school, and her isolation becomes even more acute, as does her boredom in being confined to her home. Her father is in the military and is part of the revolution and often has other loyal soldiers to their house on Friday nights. One night, up on the roof, Halah meets a handsome young soldier named Khalil. They begin to meet up there often and talk and get to know each other. They each dream of moving to America: Khalil to escape the war and Halah to gain some freedom. When she turns seventeen, they act on their dreams and elope to New York, where they marry and find a small apartment while Khalil attends medical school. Halah finds she is still isolated and bored, though she does have more freedom. Eventually, they have a baby girl, whom they name Amena, they make occasional visits back to Egypt, and Amena grows up. There are sections of the novel from the different perspectives of Halah, Khalil, and Amena, as a teen and also as an adult finding her own way in the world.

This novel succeeds on so many levels. It is a double coming-of-age story, covering both Halah's and Amena's rocky journeys into womanhood and struggles to forge their own identities. It's a multi-generational family story, weaving together the love and challenges of Halah's relationships with her parents, husband, and daughter, as well as Amena's relationships with her parents. It's a story of immigration and the challenges of two different generations to fit in and find their places. It's a love story, of both romantic love and the love between a parent and child. And it is fascinating historical fiction, covering a place and time that I knew little about. The emotional depth of the novel is deepened by its varied points of view, as the reader sees the world from each of the main character's perspectives. I was completely immersed in the intricate and surprising story, complex emotions, and beautiful writing right from the first pages. I never wanted it to end, and I have found myself still thinking about the book and its characters almost a month later. I loved this powerful, moving story of a country, a family, and how feelings and actions reverberate through generations. I can't wait to meet the author!

320 pages, A Strange Object

Publication Date: April 12, 2022

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

Diversity Challenge

Travel the World in Books Challenge - Egypt

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You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   

 

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Fiction Review: Happiness

According to my very long list of books I want to read on an Excel spreadsheet, I first heard about Happiness by Aminatta Forna at Booktopia, an annual, very unique book event held in Vermont each May where authors and readers hang out together and talk books all weekend. I'm guessing this book was a recommendation from one of the booksellers at Northshire Books, the fabulous bookstore that hosts the event, and as usual, it was an excellent suggestion. I loved this novel about two very different people whose lives intersect one winter in London. It was perfect comfort reading while I had COVID in January.

Jean is an American wildlife biologist who is living in London while studying urban foxes (a real-life issue there). She is divorced (in large part due to her devotion to her work) and has a teenage son back home in Massachusetts. She loves her job and her sideline designing rooftop/patio gardens for city residents, but she leads a fairly lonely, isolated life. She has a whole cadre of local people--doorman, cab drivers, street cleaners, security guards, and more--helping her to monitor foxes and reporting back to her when and where they see them. Attila is a a psychiatrist from Ghana who specializes in PTSD. His job normally takes him to the worst places/times, to war-torn countries where he counsels and helps both soldiers and civilians who have witnessed or been a part of horrifying events. But he is in London to give a keynote speech and also for a personal mission. Jean and Attila literally bump into each other one night on the Waterloo Bridge, and after that, they cross paths several more times. While in London, Attila's "niece," Ama, gets swept up in an immigration crackdown (even though she is there legally), and her son, Tano, goes missing. Attila begins to search for Tano while Ama is in the hospital, and Jean offers to help, along with her diverse group of "fox spotters." Jean and Attila get to know each other, and their friendship deepens, as each deals with his or her own issues and grief.

This is a warm, quiet novel that is also very thoughtful. Both Jean and Attila, very different people leading different lives, are struggling with a wide variety of issues in their own lives. Both are very lonely and are drawn to each other almost immediately. The novel addresses such diverse issues as war, dementia, immigration, divorce, and grief, but always with a gentle touch. I learned a lot about wolves, foxes, and PTSD. But the focus here is on the characters. As I read, I became deeply invested in both Jean and Attila and came to care about them. Forna's writing is beautiful, and this quiet novel set in winter was the perfect distraction and comfort while I was sick. I would definitely like to read more from Aminatta Forna (she has written three other novels and a memoir).

312 pages, Grove Press

Recorded Books

This book fit in the following Reading Challenges:

 Mount TBR Challenge - I finally read a book from my shelves!

H in Alphabet Soup

Diversity Reading Challenge

Ghana and UK in Travel the World in Books Challenge

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, an excerpt from a historical episode in 1834 at the start of the book, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

  
  

Or you can order Happiness from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Forest Dark

Last month, I listened to Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss on audio. I really loved Krauss' earlier novel, The History of Love, which has two disparate stories/characters that eventually come together in a story about (you guessed it) love. I also read her next novel, Great House, a finalist for the National Book Award, which was also good, though it felt a bit too bleak for my tastes.

 

Forest Dark follows a similar approach as those earlier novels, with two separate narratives, with just a location in common between them. Sixty-six-year-old Epstein was very successful and wealthy in New York. Recently, though, since retiring, divorcing his wife, and the death of his parents, he has been giving away his money, alarming his children and his estate lawyer. Now, Epstein has traveled to Israel, staying at the Tel Aviv Hilton, to try to find a way to honor his parents' memory. While there, he meets a rabbi who insists that Epstein is a descendant of King David, and he gets involved in a film being made by the rabbi’s daughter about David’s life.

 

In an alternate storyline, a successful female novelist has writer's block, so she leaves her husband and children behind to travel to Tel Aviv, where she also stays at the Hilton. She has stayed there every summer of her life, and she has a vague idea to set her next novel there. She is hoping the surroundings will get her writing again. While there, she gets involved with a legend/rumor that Kafka did not die as reported but moved to Israel where he recovered and lived out his life, and she ends up diving deep into research on the issue.

 

I kept expecting these two stories to come together, but they never do. They are just parallel stories both featuring Americans and set in Israel. The whole thing was quite complex. It’s the kind of book that emphasizes the characters’ inner lives, even though things do happen and there are some unexpected twists in both stories. I listened to it on audio, with a single narrator. Some chapters kept me interested and engaged, and others moved a bit slowly for me. The book is very much focused on Jewish culture and history, so I learned a lot. I know the critics love Kraus’ novels (this one was voted Best of 2017 by at least 11 different publications), but that second one, The History of Love, is still my favorite.

304 pages, Harper

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   
  

 

Or you can order Forest Dark from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's

As usual, there was a book included with the goodies in my Easter basket, and this year it was Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (the Easter bunny has good taste). I saw the movie adaptation many years ago, but I had never read anything by Capote before. My copy of the book included the novella plus three very different short stories, and I enjoyed them all.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is the story of a young woman named Holly Golightly who lives in New York City in the post-WWII years. The novella is told entirely from the point of view of an unnamed narrator, a man who lives in the apartment above Holly's in a brownstone in the East 70's. The story begins years later, when a joint acquaintance asks the narrator if he's seen Holly lately. The rest of the novella is a flashback to those post-war years and his time spent getting to know Holly, who was largely unknowable. She was a mysterious figure in New York at the time, a stylish, charming young woman who hosts fabulous, loud parties on a shoestring (much to the annoyance of other renters in the building) and who spends her time with older, wealthy men. But Holly's past is a mystery, and the narrator only slowly gets to know the real Holly behind the glitz, glamour, and poise. To say much more would give too much away, as the intrigue in this novel is that gradual reveal of the "real" Holly. 

After the novella, the book included three short stories, each very unique. House of Flowers takes place in Haiti. It's about a young woman named Ottilie who escapes from a life of prostitution in Port-au-Prince to join a man named Royal in his house, covered with flowers, up in the hills. In A Diamond Guitar, an older man named Mr. Schaeffer is well-respected in the rural prison work camp where he spends his life. A young Cuban man shows up at the camp one day with an embellished guitar and gradually bonds with Mr. Schaeffer, trying to convince him to escape with him. The last story, A Christmas Memory, was my favorite. This is the only one I'd heard of before (I think we even have a copy of it among our holiday books) and is said to be autobiographical, about a young boy and his elderly cousin. The two of them are both treated as outcasts in their family but are very close to each other and have wonderful traditions they carry out each Christmas season.

I thoroughly enjoyed both the novella and all of the short stories. Having seen the movie all those years ago, I didn't remember much of the plot but couldn't shake the mental image of Audrey Hepburn as Holly (ironic since the character in the book has blond hair). I can see why Capote is such an acclaimed writer, as this and all of the stories are filled with rich descriptions and dialogue that make you feel as if you are there, whether in NYC in the late 40's or the hills of Haiti or rural Alabama. All of the stories are thoughtful and intriguing, digging deep into their characters. A Christmas Memory is sweet and poignant, and I can see why it's considered a holiday classic. I don't know why it took me so long to discover Capote for myself, but I am looking forward to reading more from him.

178 pages, Vintage International

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Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. This audio is read by Michael C. Hall, aka Dexter!

 

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Or you can order Breakfast at Tiffany's from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: A Gentleman in Moscow

Partway through reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles this month, I said to my husband, "When I hear everyone I know saying a book is amazing, I should listen!" That was the case with this unique and extraordinary novel. I kept hearing rave reviews of it, both from friends and reviewers, but somehow I didn't get around to reading it on my own. So, I am grateful that one of my book groups chose it as our April selection. Everyone else in the group agreed that this is a warm, funny, beautifully written, and uplifting novel.

In 1922 Russia, thirty-year-old poet Count Alexander Rostov goes before a Bolshevik tribunal, upon his return to the country from Europe. They declare him an "unrepentant aristocrat" and sentence him to house arrest at the Metropol, a fancy hotel across the street from the Kremlin. The Count has been living at the hotel since his return anyway, but now he is quickly moved from his luxurious suite with its expansive views to a tiny room in the attic on the sixth floor. He can move about the hotel freely but can not leave its premises. For someone used to dining in the best restaurants, attending the theater and ballet, and traveling extensively, this is quite a difficult transition for him, and Rostov struggles at first. Then, a precocious nine-year-old girl named Nina befriends him one day in the lobby, wanting to know what real princesses are like and how they behave. The two become fast friends, and Nina opens his eyes to a whole world behind the scenes of his familiar hotel, as they explore basement passages, get to know staff, and hide in the balcony to watch meetings held in the ballroom. Rostov is naturally resilient and upbeat, and Nina helps him to see his circumstances in a new light, even long after she returns to school. He forms deep friendships within the walls of the hotel, excels at a job he acquires there, and builds his life there over the decades. Eventually, another little girl comes into his life who will again transform him, and he, in turn, must care for her.

It is easy to describe what happens in this novel but so much harder to describe how it made me feel. From its first pages, the book is entirely engrossing, Rostov completely charming, and Nina irresistible. The writing is beautiful and filled with so many thoughtful, insightful passages that my copy has many tabbed pages that I need to transcribe to my Quote Journal before I return it to the library. Here are just a couple of brief examples of Rostov's astute musings:

"But imagining what might happen if one's circumstances were different was the only sure route to madness."

"By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration--and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour."

Though it takes place mostly within the walls of this one building over the course of decades, the novel took me on a tremendous emotional journey, making me cry twice and laugh out loud over and over. That, to me, is the mark of a truly great novel: one that can make me feel. My entire book group felt the same way. In fact, our average rating as a group was an unprecedented 9.6 out of 10! It is poignant, funny, and compelling and is all about living in the present and finding small joys in every day life. I absolutely loved reading it and highly recommend it.

462 pages, Viking

My book group was thrilled to hear that this wonderful novel is being adapted into a limited TV series starring Kenneth Branagh--I can't wait!

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith, and/or download it from Audible. It sounds great on audio!

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   
  

 

Or you can order A Gentleman in Moscow from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Rabbit, Run

I had never read anything by John Updike and wanted to, so for Christmas my husband gave me Rabbit, Run, the first novel in Updike's famed Rabbit series. I finally read this modern classic last month. It was interesting and engaging, though I did have some mixed feelings about it. I'd love to hear from other readers if I should read more of the series!

Twenty-six-year-old Harry Angstrom is known as Rabbit and was a high school basketball star. Life's been pretty much downhill since then. After a stint in the Army stationed in Texas, Rabbit is now back in his hometown in eastern Pennsylvania. He's working as a salesman for a kitchen peeler, is married to Janice, and has a toddler son and another baby on the way. One day, Rabbit gets fed up with his life and with Janice, and when he goes out to pick up their son from his grandparents' house, he just keeps driving. As he drives out of town and then through several states well into the dark night, the sense of freedom makes Rabbit ecstatic. He does return back to the area but not to his home. Instead, he lives in the next town over and without a backward glance, starts a new life. He checks in with his old basketball coach, looking for guidance. And, though he doesn't ask for it, support comes from another source, too: the young Father Eccles (or just Jack), the Episcopalian minister of his in-law's church. They are understandably worried about Harry, so Jack goes looking for him and tries to counsel him. The two men begin to play golf together and talk, and it becomes obvious that Jack has some issues of his own, though he never stops trying to convince Harry to return home.

This is a twisty, compelling story that kept me guessing (mostly because I kept expecting Rabbit to do the right thing!), and it has a strong sense of place. Updike's writing is mostly excellent, and I can see why he's achieved so much critical acclaim in his career. Sometimes, a sentence or phrase would just jump off the page at me, like his description of Rabbit finally sleeping soundly after many nights of insomnia:

"Sleep this night is not a dark haunted domain the mind must consciously set itself to invade, but a cave inside himself, into which he shrinks while the claws of the bear rattle like rain outside."

Many of his passages are also thoughtful and thought-provoking, and I always enjoy that in a novel. At other times, I got irritated by long sentences inside long paragraphs that went on for pages. Rabbit is not a likable character, but I don't think he's supposed to be. He's selfish, immature, and completely self-centered. In fact, there weren't a lot of characters to feel empathy for or root for in this novel, other than the children. I certainly felt sorry for Janice, but she is not painted in an especially positive light. The novel was originally published in 1960, which was both good and bad for me. I did enjoy many of the pop culture references of the time, especially during Rabbit's late night drive listening to the radio, and descriptions of daily life. However, parts of the novel felt very misogynistic to me, and women were highly sexualized (except for Rabbit's mother and mother-in-law). I couldn't tell whether that was intentional and supposed to be Rabbit's perspective, or the inadvertent biases of the author, or simply a product of its time. So, certain aspects of the novel were problematic for me, but I did enjoy reading it, had no trouble finishing it, and admired some of the writing.

So, my question is ... should I continue the series and read more Rabbit books? Those who have read them, let me know if Rabbit grows and redeems himself in later books!

325 pages, Random House

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. The sample is from the beginning of the novel and provides a good look at Rabbit's life and into his head, as he impulsively joins some kids in a pick-up basketball game.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local:

  

 

Or you can order Rabbit, Run from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Imagine Me Gone

In my pandemic-fueled quest to read from my own shelves, I dove into an award-winning novel that my husband gave me for Christmas, Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett. This deeply moving and immersive novel about family and mental illness was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, Andrew Carnegie Medal, National Book Critics Circle Award, and it won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction in 2016.

Right from the prologue, you know this novel is going to end in some sort of disaster, with brothers Alec and Michael staying alone in a house in coastal Maine in the winter. Then the narrative moves back to the past, when the boys and their sister, Celia, were young, and the family--including parents Margaret and John--were packing up for their annual summer vacation at a house in Maine loaned to them by a family friend, which is clearly a happy place for all of them. With Margaret narrating, she goes even further into the past, when she and John were dating and living in England (where he's from), and she noticed one fall when he became more distracted, was talking far less, and his "clock began to run more slowly." While Margaret is back in New York for the Christmas holiday, John is hospitalized. She's confused when the doctors explain that he's just tired and needs to rest and that John has been hospitalized under similar circumstances before. Being the 1960's, though, nothing further is explained, and in fact, no one wants to talk about it. Margaret also talks about the children: eldest son Michael is eccentric and intense, middle-child Celia is entering adolescence and harder to reach, and youngest Alec is energetic and affectionate. She also muses on her ineffectiveness as a parent:

"With children, everything's already happening and then over with. It happens while you're trying to keep up and gone by the time you arrive at a new view of things."

Chapters alternate between each of the five family members, as the children gradually grow up and move into their adult lives. Alec is gay and a successful businessman but has trouble committing to a serious relationship. Celia has moved out to California and is in a relationship but undecided as to whether to stay. Michael struggles all of his life, in and out of school, wanting to focus on his passion--music--but often unable to live on his own, and involved in a series of dead-end relationships in which he becomes obsessed with unattainable women. John's chapters delve into the depths of his mental illness and his constant struggle to simply live a normal life:

"Against the monster, I've always wanted meaning. Not for its own sake, because in the usual course of things, who needs the self-consciousness of it? Let meaning be immanent, noted in passing, if at all. But that won't do when the monster has its funnel driven into the back of your head and is sucking the light coming through your eyes straight out of you into the mouth of oblivion. So, like a cripple I long for what others don't notice they have: ordinary meaning."

As you can probably tell, this is a very thoughtful novel with a lot of emotional depth; there is ample fodder here for book groups to talk about. In fact, I broke my general rule of short reviews here because I just had to include some quotes (I tabbed many pages while reading) and extra detail. From John's passage up above (and Michael's are similarly enlightening), you can see that this book provides an inside look into what it feels like to grapple with mental illness (serious depression certainly and probably bipolar disorder). The use of multiple narrators, though, also digs deep into the effects of mental illness on the entire family, including Margaret's worries and fears as wife and mother and Alec's and Celia's lifelong concerns and feelings of obligation to help care for their brother. As you might suspect, there are some very dark moments in this story, and it is an often-painful account of a seriously dysfunctional and disrupted family. Ultimately, though, it is also a warm story of healing and of the power of family connections.

356 pages, Back Bay Books

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. The sample is from the very beginning of the book, a haunting prologue in Michael's voice that gives you an idea of both the humorous and disturbing quality of his narrations.

You can purchase Imagine Me Gone from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

You can also buy through indie bookstores using Bookshop.

Or you can order Imagine Me Gone from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Asymmetry

The debut novel Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday has been on my radar (and my TBR list) since its 2018 release, when it landed on many Best of the Year lists, including the New York Times. My son gave it to me for Christmas, and I immediately dove into it in early January. This unique set of clever, immersive, interconnected stories more than lived up to my expectations. I not only enjoyed reading it but still find myself thinking about it a couple of weeks later.

Asymmetry is a novel told as a pair of seemingly unrelated stories that are finally linked together in the third part. Part 1, Folly, is about a romance between young twenty-something assistant editor Alice and the much older, renowned author Ezra Blazer. The story follows their unconventional, secret relationship from their meeting in a New York City park through clandestine encounters in Ezra's nice apartment to summer weekends spent at Ezra's house on Long Island, where Ezra finally introduces Alice to a friend of his. Their love grows, though it also seems limited by the restrictions they have placed on it. In Part 2, Madness, the story of an entirely different New Yorker is told. Amar is an Iraqi-American man who holds dual passports, having been born on the plane over Cape Cod as his parents were emigrating to America. He is entirely American, though his older brother chose to return to Iraq as an adult. Amar is on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan during the end-of-year holidays of 2008 when he is detained at Heathrow, unable to meet the friend he had planned to connect with in London and stuck in a detention room at the airport for the weekend. Though his story takes place entirely within Heathrow airport, Amar uses his time there to think back on his childhood, college years, and past visits to see family in Iraq. Part 3 shows the connection between the first two parts of the novel, in an unexpected and clever way that pulls the whole story together.

Halliday pulled me into each story immediately, with her vibrant characters, realistic dialogue, and intriguing plotlines. I guessed the connection between the two disparate parts of the novel before it was revealed, but that in no way spoiled it for me (just made it more fun). The stories are also connected by the city of New York, which plays a large role in Alice's story and a role in Amar's as well. While these are quiet stories, without a lot of action, the author has vividly created these worlds and these people, such that I was immersed in them from the very first pages. I always love novels with two separate stories that gradually come together, but this one is done in a unique way. The author's writing is brilliant; she made me laugh out loud, nod my head in recognition, and mark passages, like the one where she describes the late-night waiting room of an ER so perfectly (and hilariously) that I read it aloud to my husband. She also includes many literary allusions and quotes, adding another layer of depth to the novel. The Iraq war provides a backdrop for both stories: a distant current event in the news for Alice and a very real, central event for Amar, as he visits his family both before and after the ravages of war. I loved every moment of this engrossing and thoughtful novel and can't wait to read her second novel.

271 pages, Simon & Schuster

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sampleof the audio book, with multiple narrators, here and/or download it from Audible.

You can purchase Asymmetry from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

Or you can order Asymmetry from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.