Vijay’s debut novel is the tale of Shalini, a young woman living in Bangalore, India.  After her mother’s death, she is dissatisfied with her privileged, stagnant life, so she travels to Kashmir, a dangerous and primitive land, in search of a salesman who often visited her home when she was a child.  Shalini believes that if she finds him, questions she has about her mother will be answered.  What she encounters during her search is a world she never knew existed, a world and people who help her to understand herself.

The Far Field took me to a place I never knew anything about.  Kashmir has been and unstable and militia dominated land since 1947, fought over by Hindus and Muslims.  Madhuri Vijay’s excellent novel gave me insight into a young woman’s journey, the characters she lived with along the way,  and the plight of those living in Kashmir.

Nigerian born author, Obioma, has written a novel about love and loss.  His second work of fiction is the story of Chinonso, also known as Solomon.  He is a poultry farmer in Nigeria who is quite content living on his farm, but is willing to sacrifice it for the woman he loves.  Ndali, the woman, is from a wealthy family that values a good education.  Without much thought, Chinonso sells his farm and applies to a college in Cyprus.  What ensues is tragic, but Chinonso continues to love Ndali despite everything.

The narrator of An Orchestra of Minorities is a “chi,” which in Nigerian lore is a guardian spirit.  The narrator is Solomon’s chi,  who seems powerless to prevent all that happens to his host.  This chi is also extremely wordy and tends to digress often, which I think will frustrate many readers.

 

A friend suggested I list my favorite works of fiction and nonfiction for this past year, and I thought it was a good idea.  Here goes.

Fiction

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Runner Ups

A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason

 

Nonfiction

Educated by Tara Westover

Runner Ups

Becoming by Michelle Obama

The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Canto

Calypso by David Sedaris

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

Happy New Year!!

 

If you’re a fan, you’ll want to read it. if you’re not, you won’t.  Becoming covers Michelle Obama’s life from before she was born to when she and Barack left The White House.  It is not a quick read.  It is packed with personal details of her life, her opinions about everything from politics to motherhood and her hopes for her country and her family.  By the time I got about a third of the way through her memoir, I felt I truly knew Michelle Robinson Obama.  Even if one doesn’t agree with her views, her journey from a one bedroom apartment on Chicago’s South Side to Harvard Law School and then to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is an incredible trip!

The main character, Maurice Swift, dreams of being a famous writer and will do anything to achieve it.   He steals other writer’s ideas, rough drafts and friendships, and the cost to the people he steals from is lethal.   Swift is a handsome, glib psychopath who feels practically nothing for other human beings.  In A Ladder to the Sky, words can prove deadly.  Although Boyne’s prose is humorous and ironic, some of the issues he raises are serious and thought-provoking.

A Ladder to the Sky is the kind of novel where the reader knows what is going to happen, but still has a strong desire to continue reading.  John Boyne has written a good novel about fame at any cost; however, I didn’t find it as fine a work as his last one, The Heart’s Invisible Furies.

Small Fry is one of the five notable works of nonfiction selected by The New York Times for 2018.  The author’s parents were never married, conceived her when they were very young, and in many ways she paid the price for their irresponsible,  naive life style.  Lisa’s mom is Chrisann Brennan, an artist with an artistic temperament.  Her father was Steve Jobs who denied his paternity for several years and whose presence in her life was sporadic and unpredictable.  Her mother lived hand-to-mouth for most of Lisa’s childhood even though the father of her only child was a multi-millionaire.  Jobs was not generous to his eldest daughter either, even refusing to pay for her senior year at Harvard.

Lisa Brennan-Jobs writes a poignant, fascinating memoir about growing up in northern California with two parents who were selfish and quick to anger but creative and clever.

John Kennedy has just been assassinated and Frank Guidry was responsible for the killer’s getaway car.  When plans go awry, the mobster he works for is out to get him, so Frank doesn’t squeal.  Charlotte Roy is a young mother of two girls, living in a small town with an alcoholic husband.  When she gets into her car with her daughters and the family dog and heads towards Los Angeles to escape her life in Oklahoma, she has no idea that she will meet Guidry who is running away from the thug hired to kill him.

November Road is a good, fast-paced read.  Berney’s characters are believable and his plot is simple yet exciting.  It is the perfect airplane book or vacation read.

 

Simon Mawer’s most recent novel is set in Czechoslovakia and takes place in 1968 when most of its citizens want freedom, yet Russian troops are invading the city of Prague.  Mawer presents the reader with two intersecting stories.  English college students James Borthwick and Eleanor Pike are hitchhiking their way through Europe.  Originally their final destination was to be Italy, but they flip a coin, heads wins and they arrive in Prague instead.  Sam Wareham,  First Secretary of the British Embassy in Prague becomes involved in a love affair with Lenka, a Czech student who is protesting the Russian invasion and working for her country’s freedom.  These four main characters come to rely on each other in ways they never would have expected.

Prague Spring is historically accurate with real political figures and their actions interspersed throughout the narrative.  Simon Mawer writes a good story, although Sam and Lenko’s love story evolved too quickly for me to find it believable.

Washing Black was just awarded Canada’s Giller Prize and is one of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2018.  It is the story of George Washington Black, born a slave on Faith Plantation in Barbados in 1819 yet he ends up living a rather extraordinary life.  Although the master of the plantation is cruel and sadistic, “Wash” is chosen by the master’s brother, Titch, to help launch a balloon.  Coincidentally, Wash has a talent for numbers as well as drawing.  His skills and his friendship with Titch take him to the Arctic Circle, Virginia, London, Amsterdam and Morocco.  He is forced during his travels to keep his eyes wide open at all times, looking out for a bounty hunter who is eager to capture Wash and return him to Barbados.

While the plot of Washington Black is pretty preposterous, I have to admit I enjoyed Edugyan’s novel, and eagerly looked forward to discovering where and with who Wash would end up.

Against the backdrop of Chicago’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, Brown tells the story of Chaya Shadowsky and her younger brother, Asher.  Their parents are Jewish immigrants who have settled in rural Wisconsin.  When Chaya realizes that her mother has promised her hand in marriage to a man she can hardly bear to look at,  she runs away to Chicago.  Unbeknown to her, Asher has escaped along with her.  They live in poverty.  Chaya works day and night rolling cigars until she meets Gregory Stillman, a wealthy socialist (yes, it is an oxymoron).  Meanwhile, Asher hangs out at the Exposition, thieving when he can.

Brown writes an interesting novel and if you live in Chicago or know it well, the places Chaya and Asher travel to and the people they meet up with, will be familiar.  However, there were parts of The Lake on Fire that I found tedious, and its plot had no surprises.